Beekeeping Journal – Summer 2019
When the outside world seems increasingly fractious, the world of bees is a respite. Even when things are a bit challenging in and around the colonies, hearing the hum of bees as they fly in out of their hives can be calming, reassuring, mesmerizing. Here are notes from the last couple of months of beekeeping:
Borage and bees in the foreground.
Borage has been the star attraction in the garden for my little bee friends. It’s not always a visually pleasing plant, often collapsing into a gangly mass, but it’s proven to be a prolific, continuous bloomer over the summer that is keeping them fed now that the blackberries have stopped blooming.
Other plants my bees have been particularly attracted to in the garden include Oregano, Abelia ‘Edward Goucher,’ Shasta Daisy, Echinacea (especially the yellow ones), Lavender, and Nepeta.
The more concentrated the plant food sources are, the more attracted the bees become to an area. Seems obvious, but I don’t think I really appreciated it until this year as the bees seem to be staying on the property more than flying off all the time like they did last year. All the pollinator-friendly plants I’ve been massing around the vegetable garden have truly made a difference.
A frame of capped brood from the Yellow Queen hive - nice!
A queen’s egg-producing ability isn’t necessarily tied to her age. My Yellow Queen is older than my Red Queen and producing far better than her younger counterpart.
A sign that a queen is losing her egg-producing mojo: she lays less brood, often in a spotty pattern, more of which tend to be drones. You can tell drone brood by its bullet-type appearance. See photo below.
A frame of bullet-like drone brood from the Red Queen hive :(
If the queen is failing, and the hive isn’t getting the hint by early August, it’s time to re-queen. Thanks to advice from my mentor, Kathy Cox, that’s what I did. The Red Queen has been replaced by a Green- marked Queen. Long live the Queen!
Because of the near brood break and small number of remaining nurse bees at the point we decided to re-queen, I did not do a varroa mite wash test or treatment in that hive prior to the new queen’s introduction. But I did provide the hive with extra pollen and syrup to help them get going again as quickly as possible. Will do treatments in early fall.
Another sign of weakness observed in that hive prior to re-queening: a wax moth larva! Kathy pointed it out, noting that they always draw a path diagonally across a frame. I was so intent on removing the offender that I forgot to take a photo. Darn.
The new Green Queen hive with all but the top entrance (circled) on the robbing screen closed. Will keep it this way until their numbers are up and they can better defend against Yellow Jackets.
Yikes! I saw a Yellow Jacket fly straight in and out of the new Green Queen’s hive, so until their numbers get stronger again, I closed all the entrances but the top one on the robbing screen. More about the importance of having a robbing screen here .
I had heard it said countless times: Always work with the bees over the hive boxes lest the queen get dropped outside the hive. Still, I somehow managed to drop my super-duper Yellow Queen just beyond the front entrance! It was pure luck that I noticed a small group of bees on the ground after I closed the hive back up; even more lucky that I decided to help them get up to the entrance (because of the Yellow Jackets that attack bees at this time of year); and absolutely, incredibly lucky that one of the bees I gently gathered with my hive tool was the queen! Kathy says that won’t be the last time I ever lose a queen that way, but I sure hope so.
If you’re into beekeeping, too, and have observations and/or experiences to share, or if you simply have questions about what you’ve read here, let me hear from you. Such a conversation would surely lead to more learning for us all - and just maybe counterweight the negativity swirling around elsewhere in the wider world.