Day 44: Asking the Experts

Today I did my weekly hive check, and I found what I expected to find after attending yesterday's Ask a Beekeeper get together put on by the Austin Beekeepers Club. I asked a lot of questions--more than anyone else--and as so often happens when you get information from multiple sources, the answers I got yesterday contradicted what I had already been told by other reputable beekeepers. However I think they info I got yesterday was correct, so tomorrow I have more work to do in the hives. But before I go too far down the he said-he said rabbit hole, here's a quick hive status.

First off, the fourth hive is still very cranky. Okay, I might have squished a couple of bees trying to get the frames out--even with the new medium brood box (yesterday I was told "supers" are for honey, and all boxes for brood, no mater where thy are, are called brood boxes) as the bees were mostly hanging out in the bottom box and it was impossible to get my fingers in or the frames back in without squishing bees. This is the only hive where I had that problem.

I didn't even open hive #5 as it was just installed in the middle of last week.

I only found the queen in hive #3, but I found larvae in all the hives. I also found a very well-built queen cell in hive #3 and I'm not sure what that's about.

Now to what I didn't find: 1) lots of nectar, and 2) a lot of built-out comb. According to the information I got yesterday, these two are related--and they are also related to my stopping feeding. Both of the beekeepers yesterday--and one of them was Lance Wilson, who is Mr. Bee. Seriously. That man has all the cred in the world starting with his Master Beekeeper status. Anyhoo, Lance and the other experienced beekeeper at the get together both said you might have to feed your bees for the entire first year. Lance's rule of thumb is that a hive needs 15 lbs of honey in reserve at all times, and if it is a new hive that is building a lot of wax, it should definitely be fed. I had stopped feeding because I thought the bees had adequate stores--they didn't if they need 15 lbs of honey as that is three deep or five medium frames full and none of my hives has that.

So tomorrow I need to put feeder boxes back in (I have decided I don't like the boardman feeders as they leak into the hive, they mess with the entrance reducers, and they don't hold enough). However I'm also going to be putting a second brood box (medium) on two of the hives tomorrow (the TopBar and the hybrid have plenty of room to expand out and they don't take boxes on top anyway, and I already put a new box on one of them) so I need two medium division feeders. I don't want to put the feeders in the bottom boxes as I would need to lift the top boxes off every time I needed to refill the feeders. Unfortunately I only have one medium feeder so I'm off to Busy Bee in Florence tomorrow for another one or two.

My last conundrum with my hives is that it's time, according to Lance, to do a varroa mite check. I like the way he does his (shake powdered sugar into the hive, collect it on a piece of paper under the screened bottom board and look through it for mites). But only two of my hives have screened bottom boards so I either need to get screened bottom boards tomorrow for the others or don't check them that way. The other way I know of includes putting bees into a jar with powdered sugar, shaking them, dumping them on paper, and then counting mites that fall off the bees. I am not thrilled with figuring out how to get the bees into the jar in the first place, and that test isn't as accurate.

Once you've dusted the bees with powdered sugar, it causes the mite to fall off of them. The mites look like black specs in the powdered sugar, but if you poke them they wriggle their legs--unlike real specs. If you have more than six mites in your sugar when you do this test you need to treat for mites as you probably have more than a 2% mite load because of all the capped brood. Bee Weaver advertises that they haven't had to treat for varroa in many years (and as they are the source of my bees, I shouldn't have to treat either, bee genetics being what they are). Lance says he treats 2-3 times per year (based on need--the results of his tests) and commercial beekeepers treat four times.

So my current bee philosophy is continue feeding and check for mites. Tomorrow is the day to finish implementing it. My even more current philosophy is that I'm tired and it's time for bed!