Monday, August 31, 2009

Off with their Heads!!!

I'll never forget the way Mom would read Alice in Wonderland when I was a child.

She'd always bellow the part where the queen yells, "Off with their heads!" And so Dad, Mom (the newest beekeeper in the family) and I went to the bee yard on Monday afternoon to do inspections on both hives.

Last Thursday I found my beautiful queen dead in front of her hive, surrounded by her court. She appeared to have a sting on her back.
Just who did it that or why will always remain a mystery.
Possibly she flew into the wrong hive on her way home from mating, or possibly her own hive killed her.
But somehow I don't think it was the latter, especially from the way they were gathered around her on the ground. They were positioned more like ladies in waiting than killers.

We started the inspection on Hive #2.
We only looked at one frame in the top purple honey super - that box is full of capped honey and ready to be taken off.
The next yellow honey super has frames but the bees did not get the comb drawn.
I suspect this was mostly due to the requeening and also the bad weather conditions which made nectar flows vary.
No complaints though because I did not expect honey in my first year.

We found the queen on the fourth frame. This was a real surprise for Hive #2. I was anticipating that both hives would show up queenless because of the lowering numbers and activity on the porch, lack of brood, etc. But there she was, alive and well.

I didn't see brood but after seeing the queen on frame four I closed up the hive to leave them alone. Time enough for an inspection for brood next week.

Mom was the paparazzi for this visit and she apologizes to you that her photos aren't the best. Mom normally prides herself on great photographs so this was a disappointment for her. But her experience was the same as mine when first working the bees, I would put my camera too close and the photos would be blurred. It's all part of the fun.
See the queen at the top of photo at left.

We were really encouraged after seeing that queen. That hive was more active than Hive #1 so I kept my enthusiasm tempered. I was prepared for the worst on this visit and Hive #1 had 'pathetic' activity out front. Zero to two bees on the porch at a time. I didn't think there would be a queen in that hive.

There wasn't. At least not that we could see. We checked the bottom deep and pulled about four frames from the centre of the hive. I didn't see eggs or young brood but we did find a small patch of brood about 3 or 4 days old. This would work time wise if the beautiful queen had laid eggs 5 days ago.

On the 5th frame we found the supercedure cells. About six of them, capped queens waiting to emerge.

But I'd had enough of waiting. Waiting for queens to hatch, waiting for good weather so she can get out to mate--when we can't even get 2 days of sunshine in a row--waiting for her to return and finally lay eggs. Then waiting for the eggs to hatch. It's very late in the season now and these delays have put the hive in jeopardy. The numbers have declined and it's touch and go now whether the hive could survive the winter, even with a laying queen. The predictions at this point is that the hive won't survive the winter and probably isn't worth investing more in.
BUT
I have invested too much of my emotional energy and cash to quit at this point when I think one last investment could make the difference. At least I felt it was worth a try.
On the upside, the Varroa Mite count has dropped totally down - 3 mites dropped in 4 days on Hive 1 and 2 mites on Hive 2. That's because there's no brood for them to feed off of!!!! I talked to my friend Henry and he agrees with me that because mite counts are now down enough that I could probably forego the Formic Acid treatment in Sept.

The Formic Acid was a concern because it would be strong enough to penetrate the capped brood cells in order to kill mites and it would kill a lot of brood in the process.... just when I'm trying to get a queen settled and building up numbers. With the mite numbers down this dilemma is nicely solved.

So the last ditch investment and solution is to purchase a queen for the girls. She'll be a mated and marked queen and hopefully a kick-ass egg layer with super strong pheromones. Even as I write this she's sitting in the mail waiting to be couriered to me tomorrow morning.
Tomorrow we'll cut out all the supercedure cells--unfortunately having to remove many frames when we were just in there on Monday but I want them out. If there happens to be another queen in that hive that I don't know about then they'll have to fight it out and we'll hope that the best queen will live.

If I miss a queen cell then it'll be up to the victor to deal with the cell. It's my last best effort to help them.
I hope this isn't going to be a lesson in learning when to draw the line and let them go. I was hoping I wouldn't be facing that issue until later in my beekeeping career.
So I have my hive tool out to cut off their heads. No, I don't think it's funny. More like one of my favourite quotes from Ripley in the movie Aliens: "I'm finding a lot of things funny lately, but I don't think they are."

6 comments:

Cliff W said...

As you say not what you would have hoped now - career-wise or at this part of the season.

Further highs and low :) & :(

Well done though - you've decided what you need to do and are following this up. I remember from the beginners' course this year that the decision-making processing is probably the most important part of beekeeping.

Best of luck with the re-queening!

PhilipH said...

I'm sure I wouldn't make a bee-keeper after reader all the trials and tribulations, hopes and fears, joys mixed with disappointments. I do admire the way you handle all this Barbara.

The tv program on colony decline was quite harrowing in so many ways. Vast amounts of dead bees shown. American honey-bee farmers struggling like mad to save their hives.

One chap transported 70,000 hives to some isolated (sort of desert) in California hoping this would save them.

Over 1,000,000 hives were used to pollinate a huge orchard of almond trees...

Some of the stats were staggering. But the worst message was that nobody really knows what is causing this decline.

It seems that the concensus is that it is a range of things:

The V.Mite; pesticide spraying; global warming; a virus (or viruses). So, despite an intensive research operation there is nothing definite about a single cause.

Australia seems immune (at the moment) from this decline. They do not have the V.Mite in Australia but they are highly aware that this nasty little blighter might find its way in from shipping and suchlike. They keep hives at places where ships arrive and check the hives regularly for the mite. Australia exports thousands of mite-free hives to the USA and other countries and it is a profitable business in Oz.

I wish you every success in your efforts Barbara; keep up the good work.

Lynn said...

Barbara, I'm sorry you're in danger of losing your hive, but am very glad you didn't resort to the formic acid. From what I've read it is highly caustic and can result in death to the queen. It's not approved for all use in all of the US, but I know it has been in use in Canada for some time.

None of us want to lose a hive, but if it happens, there is always next season to start over. Like you say, you've invested in equipment and you obviously love beekeeping so don't give up!

I wonder if you're going to leave the honey on the hive for the bees to overwinter. If you do, you probably won't have to feed.

Bee Magic Chronicles for Kids said...

Philip - your comments are totally right according to all the research I've read and programs I've watched. Australia is mite free at this time BUT becuase they were mite free the USA and other countries imported bees (and still do) but Aussie bees had another disease called IAPV (Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus) which they then unknowingly brought into the country... so the plot deepens. The huge demand in the USA for bees is because of the almond industry (big $$$$) so I think sometimes they open borders to importation when it would probably be wisher not to.

Also, please don't be discouraged by my bad luck. Many beekeepers who comment on this site and more are very successful so I see my problems this year as more to do with really bad weather than anything else.

Bee Magic Chronicles for Kids said...

Cliff & Lynn - thanks for your comments. I know you can relate. The requeening done today seemed to go really well - I'll blog on that soon.

The bees aleady have a medium super of honey all capped and they're working on filling the deep. I plan to leave the super and also to do fall feeding. All our instructors have told us the deep should weigh no less than 65 lbs in order to survive our winters so that will be my goal. The bees come first when it comes to the honey. There is a second super full of honey as well so I will only tak that if they've got enough for themselves.

PhilipH said...

Barbara, thanks. The BBC tv program did not mention this IAPV disease, (as far as I can recall), so that's very disturbing. It seems that the poor bee population is having to contend with such a wide variety of problems. As insects do have a marvellous system of developing immunity from viruses etc., we must hope that the bee will prove to be a survivor. Certainly hope so.

The narrator did stress that more back-yard beehives would help the bee population. It does seem logical that these huge hive colonies kept by the professional 'bee farmers' are more likely to suffer greater losses if a virus hits them. A smaller venture, such as yours, might escape such a happening. I don't know, but just a thought.