Drstratton - My Backyard Journey Journal

[drstratton]

It's amazing how fast the time went from when we ordered our bees until we picked them up.

The nuc we ordered became available before our package of bees. We went to pick it up on April 23rd. Had to drive over 4 hours and get it at 6am, so we decided to drive over the day before. After all of our research we decided that we would like to buy 2 nuc's as well as the package. We were very happy that they had extras available. Nothing like jumping off the deep end...lol But, having so many years of experience in animal husbandry, we weren't too nervous about it. So we loaded up our new charges and headed home.

The girls were not very happy with being cooped up for such an extended period. When we set them near their new hives and opened the doors, a few chased us up to the house... Not to worry, it got much better after that.

The nuc's were very heavy and completely loaded with bees. The queens are amazing layers and lay edge to edge when space is available.

We had purchased 3 hives, but we only had one hive set up, we had to scramble to get the 2nd one ready, so we could put them into their new homes. We had to assemble the new frames and I had to add the extra wax needed on the new foundations. My husband also needed to build another screened bottom board and inside, top feeders.

Dale built a jig to help with frame assembly. Glued and stapled.

Inside top feeder. There are some later improvements, not shown here.

It was such a relief to finally get them installed.

 

[drstratton]

Our baby chicks arrived on May 1st.
My husband built a brooder with a clear lid so that our grandchildren could watch them, without those quick little hands grabbing them...lol

Meet Pip... thinking...

...chicken nuggets...

 

[drstratton]

We move on to May 7th and it's time to pick up our package of bees. This time they are only an hour away. I thought I had a picture of just the package, but I guess not. A package comes with 3lbs of bees and a queen in it, that equates to about 10,000 bees. They put together a package by shaking bees from many different hives into a box and add a queen inside of a small cage with a cork in one end to keep the bees from killing her. It takes a few days for the bees to accept her as their new Queen, by the pheromones she puts off. Before adding the queen to the new hive box we had to remove the cork and replace it with a small marshmallow. The bees will eat away the marshmallow to release the queen. You have to check in 3 days to make sure she has been released. A queen does not feed herself, she has attendants that see to her every need. They feed her and clean up after her. Her only job is to lay eggs. The queen also determines the attitude of her hive. A calm queen = a calm hive an angry queen = an angry hive. An angry queen can be removed and a new queen introduced, if you don't want to be attacked when you go near your hive or even hang out in your yard. Thankfully we have calm queens.

A nucleus hive comes with 5 frames and an already established colony, that's why they are so much better than a package of bees.

We have our 3rd hive set up and ready to go. Much less stressful than the nucleus install. This went of without a hitch (no running to the house with our heads covered).
I also failed to get a picture of the queen, but that's because we wanted to get them installed as quickly as possible and the gloves I was wearing at that time didn't work well with my phone camera.

We made the decision to add a frame of brood from our strongest hive and a frame of resources (honey and pollen on drawn comb. That increases the likelyhood of the package accepting their new home and not absconding. It slightly set back our first 2 hives, but didn't hurt them and it worked out well for us.

After adding the borrowed frames, the queen cage and shaking the bees into the hive, we placed the box at the hive entrance and the remaining bees crawled in to be with their queen.

 

[drstratton]

I brightened up the fence that we built as wind protection for our bees. My husband laughed at me a little, but he liked the end result.

We also planted a bunch of flowers near the hives.

 

[drstratton]

May 19th
Dale had asked me if there was anything special I wanted for Mother's Day. I told him I didn't really need anything, but we needed a riding mower for the treeline. So that's what I got. Then I told him the other part of the deal was I never had to use it, he was like, that wasn't what you said, I said, my gift my stipulations...

Fast forward to yesterday, I told him I found a way I could enjoy the mower. I could move it near the bees, sit in the comfy seat with my feet up and enjoy them in the mornings while I drank my tea. The picture shows what I found this morning!

I spent the morning and many after just enjoying watching the bees fly in and out. Seeing the pollen they bring in is pretty cool.

 

[Baymule]

It’s so nice to have you back again! I love the bee corner y’all built and the pretty decorations on it. Great work on making a Bee Palace. Good descriptions of the work y’all did and welcoming the bees to their new home.

 

[fuzzi]

I like reading about others who take up beekeeping.

 

[drstratton]

It’s so nice to have you back again! I love the bee corner y’all built and the pretty decorations on it. Great work on making a Bee Palace. Good descriptions of the work y’all did and welcoming the bees to their new home.

Hi Bay! Thank you. I've sure missed you and everyone else here. I'm looking forward to catching up!

 

[drstratton]

I like reading about others who take up beekeeping.

Good morning. I'm so glad you're enjoying my journey. Once I get everything entered I'll branch out, say hi to old friends and find threads of new ones!

 

[drstratton]

May 20th
We finally saw the queen from one of our nuc's. She was in the 2nd deep on an outside frame laying eggs, which surprised me. Pays to be extremely careful when lifting every frame. She's beautiful and is a laying machine, her daughters are just as amazing. We also have a super on her hive and those girls are in overdrive drawing out comb, tending brood, storing lots of honey and pollen. A little honey will be nice to have, but I'm really hoping to help them to be healthy and strong when going into winter, so they come out the other side.

You can see the queen circled in blue. Queens have a longer body than workers and drones. She needs to be able to lay a single egg in the bottom center of the cells. When we inspect our hives we're looking for eggs, larvae & a good brood pattern. We rarely see the queen. As long as we see eggs and a good pattern, we know things are good.

This frame had a lot of recently emerged worker bees. It's also loaded with pollen and honey to feed the larvae.

Sometimes when you lose a queen you can have a laying worker problem. You can tell if that's what's going on, 1: they lay multiple eggs in the cells, 2: the brood are all drones, because worker bees have not been bred and all they can lay are unfertilized eggs, which are drones.
It was a good inspection.