Follow-up to second inspection, link to YouTube video.

Second inspection of Hive A and Hive B, Saturday, 5/18/13:
Unfortunately, the video of the second inspection of each hive has a great deal of wind noise.  It's pretty distracting, and in some spots you can't hear what I am saying at all.  Because I wanted to get the video uploaded, I'm going to leave the wind noise for now.

I'm wondering whether I need to consider some sort of wireless microphone.  When I made the mistake of wondering this out loud and within earshot of the powers-that-be, my idea was quickly and thoroughly shot down.  My videographer and "decider" is also--unfortunately--quite a Luddite.  She is irritated that she has to use anything more modern than an abacus to help me with my beekeeping.

So, I will trudge onward, without a wireless microphone...

Anyway, please feel free to visit Video 7 (It had to be broken up into Part 1 and Part 2, as it was > 15 minutes in length).  I will do my best to make the third inspection have less camera movement and less wind noise.  I expect to be without a videographer, so will likely have to use a tripod.

I also want to bring our old Canon camera out with me.  Perhaps I'll have it in a pocket of my beesuit or on a lanyard.  If I see something really interesting during the inspection, and I can't show it to the main camera well enough or safely, I can take some pictures of it with the older Canon and insert the photo(s) into the video.

I expect the third inspection to occur this coming weekend.  It will be around day 21, so I might be able to see workers emerging from their cells.  These will be the first daughters (and sons, in the case of the drones) of the hive's queen, so it will be interesting to see whether there is any variation in how the bees look.

The ~21-day inspection is planned for the Memorial Day weekend.

First box about 60% full on each hive.

Second inspection of Hive A and Hive B, Saturday, 5/18/13:
This was day 14 for the hives, with the packages having been installed Saturday the 4th.  I was able to get my videographer out into the apiary with me, but it required a shocking amount of cajoling and pleading.  I have yet to edit and upload the video to YouTube.  In brief, I think that the hives are doing well and that the inspection went well.

It was much warmer for this inspection than the first (77 degrees versus 55 degrees for the first inspection).  I decided that I would be able to do a full inspection with no worries that I'd keep the hive open too long and chill brood.

I now seemed to have the hang of the smoker.  You might recall that I'm using wood shavings (bedding for small animals) found at Pet Expo.  There are no scents or chemicals added.  It is just simple cypress shavings, I believe.  I fill the smoker to the brim with this and seem to get at least 30 minutes of good smoke output.  It lasts the duration of the inspections, at least.

We smoked the entrance to Hive A.  I removed the log that weighs down the outer cover, and then removed that outer cover.  The pails were still quite full.  I hadn't yet put the labelled ones on the hives, and I lost track of which feeder pail was on which hive.  But, neither seemed to have taken any significant amount of 1:1 sugar syrup from the pail.  Each had at least 0.8 - 0.9 gallons left (out of a starting 1 gallon).  I put the pail to the side.  Again, with it having been one week, I wanted to replace the syrup with fresh.

I opened the inner cover.  It was not yet stuck down with propolis, but perhaps it was a bit harder to get up than it was a week ago.  We put a puff or two of smoke under the inner cover.  With the inner cover removed, the hive seemed pretty busy.  I don't recall how many frames had bees, but I did call out this information on the video so that I could record it on my inspection checklists.

Basically, the outer ~2 frames on each side were mostly untouched by the bees.  I had brought a second hive body for each hive, but ended up not needing them.  With luck and good weather and active bees, I will need them next week.

I proceeded to inspect each side of each frame.  Again, more details can be seen and heard on the video.  At some point, I may make my hive inspection checklists available on here if/when I can figure out how to upload PDF files.  Each hive seemed to have several sides of frames full of brood.  I think that I was able to tell the difference between capped honey (of which there was only a little) and brood.  The brood pattern of each hive was solid.  Any uncapped cells in the midst of the brood pattern had what appeared to be new larvae in them.  So, perhaps the bee that started out in that cell didn't make it and the queen came back along and placed new eggs in the gaps?

I still did not see eggs.  I assume that they were there somewhere.  In the places that I saw young larvae, I looked for eggs toward the outer edge of the frames.  But, I think that I am still worried about time and keeping my inspections brief.  So, I may have given up on finding eggs too soon.  In any event, the queens are seeming to be laying strong.

They hadn't eaten a lot more of the pollen patties.  I have been seeing the bees bringing in pollen over the week before, so I decided to toss the pollen patties off the hive and into the grass.  They are clearly getting pollen from other sources.  They had pollen stored on many of the frames.  I decided against adding new pollen patties.

Incidentally, when I was doing the inspections, I saw bees crawling across the frames with bright yellow pollen in their pollen baskets.  The pollen patties are a dull brown, so those bees must have been getting pollen elsewhere.  Likely dandelions as they are blooming all over lately.

I didn't see the queen of either hive.  But, I think my ability to do so will increase with time.

In the end, I closed up the hives and the bees were happy again.  Although, I would note that they seemed to be fine with the inspection, not overly upset.  No stings.  I'll end this post for now, and will update the blog when I have the next video uploaded to YouTube.

Evidence that both queens are alive and well!

First inspection of Hive A and Hive B, Sunday, 5/12/13:
This was day 7 for the hives, with the packages having been installed Saturday the 4th.  If you've read some previous posts, you might know that I was a bit worried about what we'd find (or fail to find) under the covers of the hives.  I mixed up new syrup, bagged a new pollen patty, got the smoker full of fuel, and headed out to the hive.  My videographer was in tow, grumbling only slightly and--thankfully--with minimal profanity.

It was 55 degrees and a bit windy.  But, the hives have windbreaks to their north and west.  So, by the hives, it was still and pleasant.  It was a cloudless day, and we started the hive inspections at about 1500.

The smoker was going nicely.  I filled it to the brim with animal bedding from Pet Expo.  It put out ample smoke for a good 1/2 hour at least.  One of my onlookers brought out extra bedding, but we ended up not needing it.

The video of the hive inspections can be found on YouTube by following this link.

We puffed smoke into the entrance, and the bees at the entrance retreated into the hive almost immediately.  Some flew off.  Opening the top, I could see that the queen cage that I left up top was empty of any bees.  I took it and threw it to my onlookers and well-wishers.  I was surprised at how full the feeder pail was yet on the hive.  I wondered whether they took any syrup at all.  When I opened and emptied the feeder pails back at the house, it looked as if each hive had taken only 1/4 gallon or less.  After getting the pails back home, I realized that I should have marked the pails so that I knew which hive had which pail.  This would let me know which hive ate more or less.

In any event, I took off the old pail.  I opened the inner cover.  It was not "glued" down at all on either hive.  The pollen patty was clearly smaller and even eaten into two pieces.  Where the patty had stretched across the gap between frames 5 and 6, it was eaten completely through.  I removed them and inspected them.  They looked good still, so I decided to use them again after I did the inspection (rather than put on the new ones that I had brought out).

Under the inner cover, I could see many bees.  Perhaps 2 - 3 frames were pretty full of bees.  This was somewhat of a relief; they hadn't absconded, at least.  I started looking at frames.  I didn't see eggs or any other signs of the queen in Hive A...  Until I actually saw the queen!  There was no mistaking her; she was much darker than the other bees with her abdomen visibly longer and extending well past her wings.

Once I saw her, I put the hive back together.  There was some comb that they were building out past the edge of one of the frames, but I didn't want to push my luck by bothering with it during this trip.  I closed Hive A with the pollen patty replaced, new syrup, and the queen healthy-appearing.  I was much happier about the state of things for that hive.

Hive B's inspection was similar.  The queen cage was empty; I passed it off to a spectator.  Bucket was still pretty full, but I intended on replacing the syrup either way.  I didn't want it to ferment.  Pollen patty chewed up quite a bit.  I began inspecting the frames.  On the second frame I removed (if memory serves me), I saw young larvae.  They were white, glistening, and wet-appearing.  It was a small "C"-shaped maggot, basically, that was curled up at the bottom of the hexagonal cell.  That was good enough for me.  I closed it up and ended the inspections.

This was my first "real" inspection of the hives, removing frames, replacing feed, etc.  It seemed to have gone very well, and I was pretty excited about things afterward.

Now, I will probably give them another week.  When I saw how little syrup they used, I decided to fill each bucket only half full next time (1/2 gallon per 1 gallon pail).  I've also labelled the pails.  I'll have to refresh my mind with the egg/larva/pupa timetable, but I think that I might be able to find capped brood next weekend.

Along with new syrup in the half-filled feeder pails, I'll likely have to bring out new pollen patties.  I plan on cutting one pollen patty in half and putting 1/2 on each hive.  They had only eaten about 1/4 - 1/3 of the full patty in one week, so a 1/2 patty should last them a week.  Also, as flowers appear, they can start to get their own pollen from natural sources.

Returning to the hives on day 1.

I returned to the hives on May 5, 2013, Sunday afternoon.  It was warmer (mid-50's) and the hives were more active.  They appeared to be very similar to each other in activity.  I decided to take this as a good sign.  I figured:  If I did something wrong with one hive, it would appear to be different than the other hive.  I also thought it was pretty unlikely that I did something wrong with both hives...

Hive A, one day after installation of the package of bees and their Carniolan queen.

Hive B, one day after installation of the package of bees and their Italian queen.

Many bees were crawling in and out of the smallest hole in the entrance reducer.  Each hive had bees flying around in the front area.  Orientation flights, perhaps?  It was hard to tell whether any bees were flying out at a distance.  The hives are about 200 feet west of a pond.  That will likely be their main water source.  They can crawl down the cattails to access the water without falling in.

Here is a link to video 3 on YouTube.  There is no narration.  It is just a couple of minutes of video of each hive's entrance and the busy bees around that.

The goal for this trip was, of course, more video and pictures.  But, I also was to check the syrup feeders.  Ideally, they would be full yet, but with evidence of bees clustered underneath them, ingesting the syrup.  If they were empty, that would mean they leaked and were bathing the bees in copious amounds of 1:1 sugar syrup--not good.

This trip would require the smoker.  I should have better heeded the advice I read umpteen times, "Do a 'dry run' with your smoker."  My smoker came with free samples of some compressed wood bits.  Being used to a home pine incense log that I have, I expected these smoker pellets to burn very slowly (like over an hour or so).  I was wrong...  I ran out of smoke after the first hive.

Video 4 is on YouTube and shows the inspection of each hive.  I confirm that each hive has a nearly full pail of sugar syrup (so, it didn't leak).  Also, bees were clustered underneath the pail lid, taking sugar syrup.  These are each good signs.  I did not check the first hive's pollen patty, but the second one's patty was fresh and being eaten.  Lastly, each queen cage was free of marshmallow and it seemed that the queen had left.  There were a lot of workers in the queen cages yet (they could likely still smell her pheromones).  So, I left the queen cage in the hive, hoping that there would be fewer bees in it during the next inspection.  I'm not sure that this was the right thing to do.  Next time, I might leave it at the front entrance instead of above the inner cover by the feed pail as I did.

Speaking of the next inspection, I am to inspect the hives about 5 - 7 days after installation to see whether the queen seems to be laying eggs.  My goal is to ensure that the smoker works better next time (or that the person working the smoker is better-skilled next time!).

Installing packages of bees, x 2.

On Saturday, May 4, 2013, we installed two packages of bees into the hives.  To begin, we drove to Stillwater, MN.  This is the bee distribution point for my supplier.  He is very busy when the bees come.  They apparently come from CA to him, by the hundreds of packages.  You are given a time slot to arrive, based on last name.  It's all quite efficient.  Drive in, tell him your name, get the bees, and drive out.  The bees rode back to the apiary-to-be in the back of my parents's vehicle.  As they warmed up in the vehicle (they were being stored outside in about mid-40-degree weather), they became more active and noisy.

The two packages of bees.  The top of their feeder can is visible.  The bees are clustered on the right side of the packages, surrounding the queen that is in her own, smaller cage.

The two packages of bees are in the heated garage.

Since it was so cold, I had brought the empty hives into the heated garage the day before.  With the hives then warmed in the garage, I put the bees (still in their packages) into the hives.  This meant that I needed to remove the center 4 frames.  We walked the hives out to the site with the bees inside them.  I placed the hives on their stands.  Then, starting with Hive A, we installed the bees.

In our bee suits.  The beekeeper garb is warm enough that we are in shorts and t-shirts underneath, though the weather is in the mid-40's, temperature-wise.

For the installation of the packages into the hives, we had about 1/2-dozen hecklers (on-lookers and well-wishers, they called themselves).  The Carniolan queen package went into Hive A, and the Italian queen package, Hive B.  To my relatively untrained eye, they were very similar.  The Carniolan queen was darker in color, especially in the abdomen.

The installations went well overall, as far as I can tell.  As noted above, the temperature was in the mid-40's.  It was a mostly cloudy day.  Not too windy, especially where the hives are located (they have windbreaking trees to the North and the West).

Some of my on-lookers had suffered through hive installation videos on YouTube, per my request.  So, I had some help there.  Also, I had written up a "cheat sheet" beforehand that I gave to another.  I could request a prompt on the next step, as neeeded.

Hive A was first.  It was going to receive the Carniolan queen.  I won't bore you with the step-by-step.  There are videos linked to below.  We used the marshmallow method for the queen release.  The rest of the installation you can view via YouTube as Part 1 and Part 2.  The only thing that I did clearly wrong was failing to remove the queen and her cage from the larger cage before shaking the bees into Hive B.  Despite the vigorous jostling, she seemed to be fine.  The rest of the installation was the same with each hive and largely textbook.