90, humid yesterday.

Still no evidence of a queen in Edinburgh. London still producing eggs, and various stages of larva and capped brood observed. No comb drawn in the supers yet.

Rumors

Heard from a coworker that a hivekeeper-friend in St Paul is reporting similar swarming problems.

All Hail the Queen

90s, humid, sporadic rain.

New queen cleanly hatched out of Edingburgh, the rest of the frames are mostly capped honey (scraped one open by accident during inspection) and past brood cells rapidly being filled. Not sure if new queen will be able to hatch much brood before fall.

London still has eggs, and a queen. Lots of activity but no comb in supers.

Absconded!

Steamy, high 80's.

Edinburgh swarmed today; lost about half the hive. Opened the hive to find five swarm cells and a supercedure cell. No queen, some capped brood but no eggs. Destroyed the swarm cells, left the supersedure cell to allow the a new queen to start over. Will check next week, will attempt to requeen if there are no eggs soon.

Swapped honey supers over to London, who is still producing eggs and capped brood. Now has 7/10 frames filled in the top deep.

More activity in both hives. London up from 5 frames to around 6.5... still going to wait a week to dump on their super. Edinburgh bees moving about their supers, but no foundation built yet.

Strange Beehavior

Bees absolutely insane today. Steady columns of them rising from and circling the hive from 10:30 to around 11. My amateur (and likely ignorant and wrong) guess would be a recent brood doing their orientation flights.

Warm, 80's, humid, chance of rain today.

Swarming with Life

High 70's, still rather humid, sunny.

Finally found one of the bee hotspots; a solid clump of Butterflyweed that has also attracted its share of native bees as well as Monarchs and Red Admirals. Things in the hives pretty much the same. Briefly checked London to see if it was ready for deeps; it is still about a frame and a half short. Plenty of egg production. Edingburgh has not begun drawing out its supers yet.

Humid, 80's, periodic rain.

Edinburgh has drawn out almost 9 of 10 frames in their top box, meaning it's time to super up for honey production. London is a bit behind, with only around 4 frames drawn out, but looks just as healthy. Both have a good amount of healthy eggs and larvae in their top boxes. Added new grease patties today.

Cool, 70's.

Edinburgh upper deep being drawn out, about 4 frames, largely of honey. Spotted both eggs and larvae. No upper deep drawn out on London yet (asside from a spattering of extra wax,) but plenty of eggs and brood in the upper deep, and more comb drawn out than before. Lots of bridge comb on both hive; likely have enough by now to make a few candles.

Edinburgh Brood frame ; note the honey and pollen clusterd around the edges.

Neither frame has done anything (besides a small bit of wax building) with their upper deeps so far. Both have developed more of their middle deeps, Edinburgh being almost full now. Lower deep foundation is now much darker, making it easier to spot eggs and larvae. Both hives building up their pollen supplies, and both producing a large amount of bridge comb.

Switched a few undeveloped frames around with more developed frames. Both queens still seem to have solid laying patterns (see the fresh brood comb above).

Latest Check

Warm, mid-60's. Lots of recent rain. Both London and Edinburg doing well, lots of brood in the upper deep, E has 3 frames of brood, 4 of mixed honey and pollen. L has 4 frames of brood, 2 of mixed honey and pollen. Very fresh comb seen in E loaded with eggs.

Pieces of the Puzzle

Interesting -- read in the Pioneer Press that the decline in bee population may have been caused not only by pesticide, disease, and imported parasites, but by a lack of pollen and nectar variety. This would seem to explain why more commercial beekeepers (who focus their hive on specific plants such as apple, alfalfa, orange etc,) tend to be harder-hit than amateurs.

Fifth Check

Worker bee displaying wax gland

Warm, 70's, partly cloudy.

London and Edinburg are both drawing down a lot less on their syrup feeders; each had feeders about 80% full. Each are also drawing out comb, and raising brood, on the upper deeps. Edinburgh had drawn out 4 frames in the upper deep (2 frames honey/pollen, 2 capped brood cells), while London has 3 (2 honey/pollen, 1 larvae.)

Made a mistake on London, attempting to brush some bees off a frame, raised the alarm and had the upper deep humming angrilly. A few puffs of smoke from below and a few minutes unmolested seemed to have them calm again. Had to close up early because of the sporadic bouts of rain.

Fourth Check

Comb (like this bridge comb between London's frames,) begins a pure white. It becomes more yellowish as pollen is tracked into the hive, and eventually a brown/black if not changed out every few years.

Got my first sting today (in the lip, through the veil as I bent over to remove London's entrance reducer.) Waited a few seconds for a decent amount of venom to seep in before scraping the stinger out with my teeth.

Propolis, an antiseptic brown, sticky substance bees produce from tree sap to block up holes. Propolis can be dried, mixed in alcohol and added to tea or coffee to treat ulcers, colitis and other digestive ailments.

Edinburgh syrup almost gone, London 3/4 full. Edinburgh had 8 frames almost fully drawn out, while London is still at 7. Both are beginning to draw comb in the upper deep, Edinburgh going at a marginally faster pace. Both hives starting to glue frames together with propolis. Both hives have good, solid laying patterns. London almost out of pollen patty.

First Brood

Why beekeeping? I work in an office. I spend a large portion of my day staring at a computer (or other people's computers,) making decisions about LAN's and business systems and other structures, play a vital role in corporate survival, basically come down to a bunch of 1's and 0's flowing from one wire to another.

This career path generally lends itself to a certain type of hobby; video games, computer programming, animation, the purchasing of various gadgets and doo-dads that, while interesting, have little bearing on the physical world.

And that's what it comes down to, really.

I like the things I do in my spare time; that portion of my life that all that desk-sitting is supposed to pay for, to have a connection to the physical and natural world. Hence interests such as photography, gardening, sailing, even violin.

Beekeeping's the same thing. See, since I was a kid I wanted to be a farmer; to make sustenance for myself, and sell the abundance for profit. And I may still do that someday when I save the money to purchase the land. But beekeeping lets me do that on a small scale; to tap and tend a natural resource on minimal acreage.

True, I do like native gardening and wildlife, and while bees aren't native to North America, they're also not invasive (there are few, if any, feral colonies,) have little impact on native animals, and are actually beneficial to native plants. Without them, we'd have to increase the amount of land required by agriculture.

After reading a few books on the subject late last year, I found a local beekeeper who sold supplies, and a community college course taught by Bob Sitko on beginning beekeeping. By late April, I was ready to start my first two colonies; London and Edinburgh.

Two three-pound packages of Carniolan honeybees; what would become London and Edingburgh.

April 21: 4:15 PM Hived London and Edinburgh, accidentally swapping a few of the frames in the hustle of the original setup. May have come close to drowning E Queen in an effort to keep her from flying, but the workers got her cleaned up&moving. Added full feeder pails, grease patties, and pollen patties to each hive. Per the advice of Nature's Nectar, left the entrances blocked for a short while, then reopened as evening set in.

London and Edinburgh in the best spot I could choose; beside the pond in the middle of our native garden. This will provide the bees with a ready supply of water, pollen, nectar and shade; everything a hive needs to be succesful. In the winter, the hives can be pushed together and covered in tarpaper.

April 22: Bees going into and out of hive; their erratic patterns in the air and searching for entrance seems to indicate orientation flights. Checked feed buckets. London bucket seems to be fuller than E Bucket.

April 23: Checked both feeder buckets, opened E top just long enough to shift pollen patty, which the bees were all over.

Active bees; a sign of a healthy hive.

April 25: Cool (upper 50's), rained in the past day. Checked water levels. E still feels quite full with only a few bees poking around near the feeder, London feels a bit emptier, with loads of bees spotted directly under the feeder. (Later in day) Bees moving in and out, circling hive. No bees noticed on trees or flowers.

A first quick check of the bees; some drawn comb, some honey (the watery stuff) and pollen (the darker material in the cells.)



April 28: Warmer (60's), checked for queen. Edinburgh seems to have a pretty decent compliment of bees; they were all focused on the far side of the hive (below the pollen patty) so I shifted their frames over to the middle so they would have easier access to the food. Didn't spot her, but I did see several drones wandering about (easy to spot with the eyes that go to the back of the head and rounded bottoms) Bees actually clasping to one another between the frames! Both London and Edingburgh are drawing out comb. What definitely appear to be larva spotted on pictures taken of comb!


May 2: 60's, windy. Noticed several carnolians (likely ours) sucking nectar from dandelions in yard. Lots of activity, some pollen packets spotted. Checked the syrup buckets. Edingburgh is still about half full while London has gone down to under 1/4. Lots more activity under E bucket now.

Capped brood and pupae in various stages of capping. Excellent proof the queen is alive and well (or was in the past week.)

May 15:Second check. E 3/4 of syrup, built bridge comb between E&10 and E2 (both brood comb), removed bridge, displaced E3 and E9 (mixed honey and pollen) and moved undrawn frames in. Only 5 frames drawn total; same as before. Shift should resolve that. L had only about 1/4 syrup left (will check midweek). Impressive amounts of capped honey in L. L had eaten through pollen patty. Both grease patties were low; added more. Shifted frames in the same manner in L. Saw brood in both frames; larvae in E and very advanced pupae in L.

May 22:E 1/2 syrup, lots of bridge comb. Glistening white larvae seen in 2 frames of brood comb. around 4.5 frames of honey and pollen, added second box. L had 3/4 syrup left, 2 frames brood comb, 5.5 frames honey and pollen. Very solid laying pattern in L, with lots of capped honey and some pollen above the brood. Added second hive box. Switched entrance reducer to larger hole on both.