August 13, 2016 Bee Yard Visit

Today, Mark and I discovered a new (and very interesting) small tree on Doug and Linda’s property, about 50 yards from our eight hives.  Bumble bees, honey bees, butterflies and wasps were all over the yellow flowers hanging from the tree.  Before blooming, the yellow flowers hung in clumps and were the shape of peapods.  Mark and I researched the Texas A&M horticulture website and found that this tree is a Drummund Rattlebox Tree.  http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/ornamentals/nativeshrubs/sesbaniadrum.htm

Drummund Rattlebox tree with blooms.

Drummund Rattlebox tree.

Drummund Rattlebox tree with blossoms yet to open.

Drummund Rattlebox tree.

Drummund Rattlebox tree blooms opening.

Wooly Croton provides pollen for the bees.

During our hive inspections, we saw many things that confused and worried us.  Hive 01 still had some population, although not a great amount.

Hive 01 frame with uncapped honey and a few bees.

In hive 01, we noticed a bee with deformed wings.  We've heard that this can be a sign of a virus that varroa mites may spread when present in the hives.

Bee with deformed wings.

A queen excluder keeps the queen from entering up into
the honey supers where our honey stores are located, so there are
no eggs and larvae in our honey frames.

Hive 01 doesn't have good population.
We did not see the queen, nor any eggs or new larvae.
In this photo, there is some capped larvae.

Hive 02 had almost no brood and no queen. 

Hive 02's population was low and there was no queen and no brood,
even though we just installed a new queen during our last visit.

Hive 03 had a lower population than we saw during our last visit.

Hive 03 frame with capped honey.

Hive 03 frame with just a little capped brood.

Hive 04 is hanging in there with our queen still busily working away. 

Hive 04 bees.  Look closely, deep in the cells to see new larvae.

Hive 04 capped brood.  One larva is out of place. 
Perhaps the bees noticed something was wrong and they
began to remove the larva.

Hive 05 looked good with a lot of larvae ready to be capped by the bees.

Hive 05 larvae.

In hive 06, we saw varroa and the impact that the mites have on the larvae. In the two photos below, you can see the white larvae appears to be "melted".  We think this is a condition called sacbrood, which is a virus that can be transmitted by the varroa mites.

Hive 06 bee larvae appears melted.  Notice one larva to the right
of center, just above the bee, has a tiny varroa mite on it.

"Melted" uncapped larvae in Hive 06.

We did see that in hive 06 there was some small larvae, so it made us feel better that the queen is still in place.

In hive 07 the population seemed low, but we did not see any evidence of varroa mites.

Hive 08’s super is empty of any honey. 

The population in hive 08 is very good and there is no sign of varroa...that we can see.  (But, that doesn't mean that they aren't lurking around, as they probably are.)

During our last visit, we missed seeing our queen in hive 02 and so Mark and I ordered a new one.  We received her in the mail from Kelley Bees, located in Kentucky, and installed her during this visit.

Hive 02 queen received and installed today.

Hive 02’s new queen is installed and meeting her new colony for the first time.

It will take a few days before the queen exits her cage and begins to lay eggs.

No doubt, we waited too long to manage our varroa mite issue.  We should have treated all of the hives in late winter and perhaps we could have avoided this issue.  Mark and I have learned another lesson the hard way.  We are seeing devastation in low populations and poor brood development.  We are a little panicked and have decided to order varroa mite treatment and treat all of the hives right away, even the hives that have supers with honey for us on them.  This means that we cannot extract our honey from the supers for our own use.  We will not bottle honey this year, as it will be contaminated with the treatment residue.  Instead, the bees will keep this honey for their own use during the winter months.