Honey Run Apiaries-A Beekeeper’s Blog

I’m only running about 2 weeks late due to the weather.  On Friday I made up a strong queenless hive by removing a queen a couple frames of brood and bees from a hive, placing them in a five frame nuc.   Then adding a full medium of bees and brood to the now queenless hive.   Saturday afternoon I grafted the first batch of larvae from one of my overwintered NWC breeder queens. 

This particular breeder made it though the winter in great shape with a good strong population (you couldn’t tell it was a bad winter looking at them).  She was from the European stock (semen) Sue Cobey managed to import last year after many years of trying to get approval and cutting though all the red tape.  I must say the effort was well worth it as the 2 queens I have from this stock both look great and are probably the strongest hives I have.

A check this Sunday revield what I had hoped for, almost perfect acceptance of the grafted larvae.  37 of the 38 took.  I might actually be getting the hang of this.  Lack of recent practice in previous years usually made the first graft difficult and often with less than desireble acceptance resulting in having to regraft.   A picture of the cell cups, still well covered with bees after being removed from the hive to check it, is show to the right.  This picture was taken just 24 hours after grafting.  You can already see a good rim of wax being built on the cells and a good amount of white royal jelly in the bottom of the cups.

After 2 weeks of delays, the bees are here.  110 packages of bees arrived around 7 and Saturday.  While I was eager to get them started, I really didn’t mind the delay due to all the bad weather, and even snow we had the previous weeks.  By 8 the first beekeeper had already picked up his packages and most of the rest of the beekeepers picked theirs up on Saturday. 

Most were in very good shape with only a couple with a lot of dead bees in the bottom of the cage, and only one queen was reported dead in the cage (a replacement was sent out this monday).  Timing couldn’t have been any better as the weather was beautiful, if not even a bit warm for the package bees.  We kept the last ones to be picked up on the cool concrete floor of the garage, and it was none too soon as Sunday got into the 80′s and the bees in the remaining packages were starting to get stressed running around the cages.

Those I had purchased myself to help make up for losses were installed on Friday and Saturday without incident.  They were relatively calm for being transported so far and being shaken out of a cage.  A few queens were released on Sunday, and the rest will be released today, weather permitting.  I watched the first queen released on the comb was very calm, and laid her first egg after only 5 minutes.  I’m hoping that’s a good sign of queens well taken care of (I’ve seen queens banked for awhile before shipping take a week or more to start layng)

It seems like winter just doesn’t want to let go this spring.  I’ve actually seen snow falling more than half the days this past week.  It hasn’t been terribly warm this week and the snow that has been sweeping across the country from Colorado to the Northeast arived this afternoon.  I couldn’t get a picture because it’s now dark, but there is an inch or two on the ground now and it hasn’t stopped yet.  The kids even wanted go go sledding (there is actually enough for that), but mom vetoed that idea in favor of bed time.

Needless to say nothing has gotten done beekeeping wise.  Last year this time I was making up mating nucs and putting out the first batch of queens.  This year it’s simply too cold to begin.  The shipment of package bees was also delayed due to the weather.  I’m eager to get started, but it was probably a good thing.  Hopefully this next week will be more promising.  It doesn’t look like  a warm forcast, still below normal, but should get into the 50′s.  The package bees should be here late this coming week, and with luck it will be warm enough to start grafting and inspecting hives.  I expect to find a few more hives that were lost in the past couple weeks with the cold weather and snow, but only a few.  Still, it could push our final loss to 60%, a full 6 times our normal loss. 

What is wrong with this picture?  April and today at 41 degrees, was the warmest day in the past 6.  4 of those days I’ve awoke to find snow on the ground.  (I had a picture of hives in the snow take just yesterday, but it was on a new camera phone and I just couldn’t get it working right). 

Delays:  Was a beautiful 2 weeks before this past week.  highs in the 60′s and 70′s with lows only in the upper 40′s.  But as of last week everyting was put on hold.    We were to begin grafting last week (can’t do that when the high’s barely got to freezing), and the package bees that were to be delivered were delayed due to bad weather in the Rocky Mountains.  They didn’t want to chance them getting delayed due to road closings.   We’ll have to keep a close watch on our weather, it’s finally starting to look up this weekend (at least I hope this is the last snow I see this season).

Chilled Brood:  The couple of warm weeks did give the hives a much needed boost.  They were bringing in nectar and pollen with no end in sight and the willows had just bloomed and were literally buzzing just before the cold front blew in.  Unfortunately though I think I’ll find a lot of chilled brood in the hives once it warms up.  In the warm spell they simply started raising more brood than they could keep warm once it got cold again.  The scene in my observation hive paints a sad picture.  Even with the hive indoors, the bees weren’t able to keep 1/4 to 1/3 of the brood warm and there is noticeably stressed and decaying brood where they weren’t able to cover it.  The hives still should recover, they’ll just have lost another week or so.