The "Tom" and "McFadden" colonies in late April 2013

I was happy to find that the queen in the "Tom" colony was still laying. But I think I need to do something a little more aggressive to rebuild this colony.  This video is very short.  I just wanted a quick peek to see what was going on.

http://youtu.be/CTM6xC8BAvg


I'm sorry to say that this next video is a long one by my standards.  I don't like long videos because it is easy to lose interest.  I usually edit a lot out of the raw video and try to keep things interesting, but there is so much interest within the video that it remained fairly long.  Thanks to my lovely assistant (and wife), Ramona, for her help with the camera and the extra hands.

The purpose of the video is to show how I put wild comb in the bottom box of the McFadden hive into frames.  I am very glad I checked it out today because I found 2 swarm cells (cells in which the nurse bees are creating new queens).  I want the bees to clean up the mess I made of their comb before I stress them out again with swarm preparations, so I eliminated the swarm cells.  You will also note that their is a large amount of drone brood, this is also a sign of an imminent swarm.  You have to have a lot of drones to mate with a new queen.

This is such a strong colony that I want to split it and make two out of the one.  For this, I will need a swarm cell (queen cell) and lots of brood.  From the looks of things, that will be the easy.  I will have to pay very careful attention to this colony for the next few weeks, at least until I split the colony.  If they create more than one swarm cell I will use an extra one to re-queen "Tom".

By the way, this is the McFadden colony.  It is a feral colony that built its nest in a vacant hive on my friend Pat McFadden's farm.  Unfortunately, Pat was too ill to take care of the colony and they built 4 frames worth of wild comb to fill in the middle section of the box (there are 3 frames on each side).  If you need to monitor the colony for disease, swarming, or various other reasons, it is very convenient, if not necessary, to work with frames.  That is why I abandoned top bar hives during my first year of bee keeping.

The McFadden colony appears to be so strong and the queen lays such a great pattern that I want to purposefully make it a breeder colony to replenish my own apiary and help others too.

http://youtu.be/QuMeJz7Frvs

The pond is full! And the bees are cold!

I think it's great that the pond is full.  But I am tired of the cold April weather.   April in Kansas is the time for bees to be foraging and gaining numerical strength for the upcoming honey flow.  The cold weather could be retarding sources of early nectar and pollen, which are important for the spring build up.

My neighbor to the south of the farm said we received 2 1/4 inches of rain last night.  I knew it would take just one gully washer to fill it.  By the way, I finished painting the boxes.

Wow! The bees are having a hard time of it!

I ordered two packages of bees for this spring and expected them to arrive Saturday morning the 20th. This isn't going to happen now. My shipment, along with hundreds of other colonies, died en route due to a snow storm in Wyoming this week. This is terrible! Our local suppliers still have my deposit and they are trying desperately to fulfill the orders. I really don't know how many colonies were affected but it could number in the thousands. Our local distributor picks up about 150 or so for local beekeepers in South Central Kansas. And he is just one of many distributors that pick up bees in Nebraska after the trek from California.

In the meantime I found two sources for direct delivery through UPS but I am not sure I want to pay the premium. But time is running out and I will need to make a decision soon. This just reinforces my need to have a completely sustainable apiary and produce my own colony increases. I just need to bite the bullet, study up, and learn how.

Time for a short update

It seems like it has been a while since my last update.  This will be a short one because things are pretty much ready for the new bees and it isn't warm enough to deal with a special project I have planned for the McFadden colony.

That project is to split the McFadden colony making two colonies out of one.  We'll learn more about splitting hives in the not too distant future.  Before I can split the colony I will need to move the 4 wild frames of comb (comb built without frames in the middle of the box) into frames.  This needs to happen so that I can work the hive with relative ease when it comes time to split the colony.

In the meantime I built this handy little 5-frame nuc box.   Because of its size the nuc box heats and cools much more efficiently than a standard hive and is therefore a better match for a very small colony.  We'll move the colony out when they get too big for the nuc. 

I painted the nuc and three medium honey supers on Sunday afternoon.

By the way, the new bees arrive on Saturday the 20th!

The Trees are In!

Last Friday I took the day off to work on the farm.  I planted three Montmorency cherry trees and 10 Vitex.  The Ryker family loves these cherries.  The cherry harvest happens just before my birthday and my family loves to come up to pick and pit.  Mom taught Ramona and me how to make cherry jam one year.  Best stuff I have ever tasted on my toast.  Our hope, of course, is to produce enough to share and sell.

The drought has been very tough on the region's flora and fauna these past two years and it overcame our only existing Montmorency tree last year.  That really is too bad!  We'll have a small wait until the new trees mature a little.

By the way, I know they usually look ugly and rusty but don't discount the effectiveness of these little antique cherry stoners.  I picked one up for cheap and cleaned it up with steel wool.  It works great as long as you don't mind the meats getting a little mangled.  But if you're making jam, it really doesn't matter, right?!

 
Vitex are also called Texas Lilac.  This link will take you to a site that provides some basic information about the plant.  They're supposed to bloom all summer long.  That is a good thing.

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/cemap/vitex/

Spring is here! It's time to do some planting.

Spring is here.  And it's time to plant some fruit trees.  Two years ago I drowned the saplings.  Last year the drought got them.  Maybe "third time's the charm."  If only we lived on the farm, taking care of the place would be a lot easier.

I checked the nursery for Mont Morency cherries and Elberta peaches.  They have both.  We love picking and making jam out of Mont Morencies.  Homemade jam from fresh sour cherries is absolutely amazing.  We have a single Elberta that survived both the drownings and the drought, so I think I'll plant another.  I also made arrangements to purchase 10 Vitex.  I have heard that Vitex is also called Texas Lilac.  Anyway, since Saturday is set construction day, planting day will be tomorrow and I'm taking the day off to git-r-done.

I should really plant some blackberries too!  I'll check with the nursery.

The Little Mean Bees Have Been Renamed

They will no longer be called the "Bees who sting first and ask questions later", they shall now be called the "McFadden Bees".  <insert dramatic fanfare here>

I like them.  The hive is loaded with bees, they must have started their build up early.  I believe that these bees were feral bees that Pat McFadden and a friend of his collected from a structure one day.  I don't know when this happened but his son-in-law, Peter, witnessed the collection and told me that even on that day they weren't a happy lot.  As you can see in the video, I stirred them up quite a bit, but they weren't nearly as aggressive as they were last fall when I first tried to move them.  I finally broke down and purchased a hive net.  Ramona and I moved them Friday night the 29th of March.  They seem to be settling in very well.

What I like about them is their numerical strength this early in the season.  All of this without my interference.  If I can, I will split the hive and make two colonies out of the one.  I'll let the bees produce a new queen for the new colony from their own stock.  I am trying to make plans to witness hive splitting with the Vinduska's and with McCreight.  I met McCreight on the 31st at an Easter Pageant and he seems to have his beekeeping act together.  I could learn a lot from either of these men.

Check out the video  http://youtu.be/uq2FfJcfkuI