Honey for Us Very Soon!

Early Saturday morning sun heating up the hives.

Mark and I decided that we could not "wait and see" what might happen to hives 02 and 08 without queens.  We were just too nervous. So, we went ahead and ordered two new queens from Bee Weaver in Navasota.  Bee Weaver shipped the queens to us in the US mail and we received them without incident.  Bee Weaver has always come through for us!  Our decision to order new queens gave us peace of mind, as we were worried that the hives might not be successful rearing their own queens.  One day, I hope to learn about rearing queens, so that I will have more control over our queen situations and to save on the cost of queens.

When we opened hive 02 we noticed many queen cells being constructed, which we removed before installing our new queen.

This is just one side of one frame from the top deep hive in hive 02.
We removed several queen cells.

We installed the new queen in hive 02 and the colony seemed to take to her very well.  Her pheromones immediately attracted the bees in her new colony.

The new queen for hive 02 has a white dot on her thorax.
This will help us to find her easily during future visits.

The deep hive frames in hive 02 are full of honey.
Deep hive frames are 9 1/8" tall.
Honey stored in the deep hives is not ours,
it is for the bees to keep for their own use.

Hive 03 is without a super, but hopefully we will be adding one soon.


Hive 03 has a nice brood pattern with capped honey along the top
and capped brood in a sort of rainbow shape beneath the honey.

We came across our queen in hive 04.

Hive 04 houses our Buckfast queen, shown here near the center
of the frame with a blue dot on her thorax.

We are excited that hives 01, 05, 06, and 07 are doing so well and we are thrilled that we will have honey to extract from each of these hives in the fall!  These hives have one super each, all of which are nearly completely filled with honey.  

 

You may remember from our previous postings that medium supers are the shorter hive boxes that store the honey for us to keep.  They are commonly called "supers".  The frames in the supers are 6 1/4" tall. 

Hive 05 frame from super.  The bees have started to cap the

honey at the top (the white patch).  Soon, the entire frame will

be capped and white in color.



Hive 05 frame from super.  When the bees have the honey
at an acceptable water content level, they then cap the honey
with beeswax to keep additional moisture out and to hold they honey inside. 

Hive 06 frame from super.

Hive 06 frame from super is filled with shiny honey and
the bees will begin to cap it any day now.

Hive 06 frame from super.

Hive 07 frame from super is full of honey ready to be capped.

During our next visit, we will add second supers to at least half of our hives; 01, 05, 06, and 07. 



Hives 02, 03 and 04 may soon be at a point to have their first supers installed. 

Hive 08 had more than enough honey in their deep hive boxes and we noticed that their brood level was low, as they had been without a queen for awhile.  We swapped four frames from hives 05 and 07 and gave hive 08 more brood in exchange for honey in hives 05 and 07.

Hive 08 deep frame full of honey.  When these frames are
full of honey, they are very heavy at about 4 or 5 pounds.

A pest of the honey bee that we have heard and read a lot about is the varroa mite.  Mark and I haven't paid much attention to discussions about varroa, because we were certain we had did not have any in our hives.  A couple of weeks ago, Mark and I went to a local bee clinic, where we heard a speaker talk about varroa.  The speaker mentioned that beekeepers who claim to never had varroa aren't looking hard enough.  Our ears perked up and sure enough, we suddenly noticed a varroa in hive 08.  Varroa can wipe out hives by introducing viruses and infecting the bees.  We will look into the different options to treat our hives to make sure we stay ahead of the pest.  If you are interested in learning more about varroa mites, this article gives a very good summary:  Honey Bee Viruses, the Deadly Varroa Mite Associates

 

Hive 08 varroa mite on honey bee larvae.

Mark and I installed a new queen in hive 08 and we are crossing our fingers that she makes this colony happy. 

Hive 08 new queen has a white dot on her thorax.

The peak season for nectar flow is ending now, but there are still plenty of flowers in bloom.

Linda has a beautiful patch of wildflowers very close
to the hives.

Ruellia is in bloom in Texas.

Silver dwarf morning glory.
They are about the size of a nickel.

Capeweed flowers.
This honey bee bounced around on
nearly each one.

Silverleaf Nightshade flower.  Notice the green bee?
This is an Agapostemon texanus, aka
green sweat bee, aka Texas metallic green bee.

Blue porterweed.

Opened milkweed (antelope horn) seed pod.