Bee Language

Our friend John came to visit us this weekend and he was really drawn to our bees. He recently wrote a paper for college about bee language and figures that humans could learn more about communicating with each other by understanding bee language. That's really something to think about. The honey bees in a colony have multiple ways to communicate with each other. One way they communicate is by "dancing." The waggle dance, the tremble dance and the grooming dance are three dances that have been identified by scientists. The waggle dance is used to communicate information regarding food and water sources among other things.The tremble dance is used when foraging bees need more help at the hive to unload the nectar they have collected. The grooming dance is what is sounds like. It encourages bees to clean each other.

Here is an informative and entertaining video about the waggle dance from NOVA on PBS:
http://video.pbs.org/video/2300846183/ Maybe if we humans communicated more by dancing we would be happier!

I have seen some of our bees doing the waggle dance when we have been checking the hives. Hopefully one of these days I can get a video. In the meantime, enjoy this waggle dance song from Phineas and Ferb:

Capped Honey! Not Honey Bound

Matt was worried that his bees had brought in so much nectar and stored it in the brood chambers, that there was no room for the queen to lay her eggs. A beekeeper told us the term for that was "honey bound." He added another honey super (which made three) and hoped that the bees would move the food stores around so the queen would have more room to lay. He also took out one full deep frame that was full of capped honey and replaced it with an empty frame for them to draw out. He wrapped the frame in plastic wrap and put it in the freezer. This allows him to be able to feed this food to his bees this fall, while enabling them to have a new empty frame for more brood. Adding the third honey super worked out well because the bees did move lots of the nectar and pollen to make room down in the brood chamber.

The capped honey in the deep super that we put in the freezer. It was capped on both sides.

The bees cleaned the cells out to make room for brood.

We found out a way to get the bees to draw out the comb faster on the plastic frame. You melt some beeswax and using a foam brush, paint wax onto the frame. This just gives them a head start and encourages them to work on it. 

With more wax painted on

Frame with plastic comb

The bees are really going after it and they have capped honey in the honey super too! 

We also got some frame grippers. The frames are getting really heavy with all the nectar and bees! These help to hold the frame up with a bit less effort and awkwardness. 

And here below is a great example of a tight brood pattern in the middle of the frame and and capped honey on the sides and top. This is how the bees and the queen organize the food and the larvae. 

Bee Bearding

We decided not to check the hives this weekend, and just let the bees work. It has been humid lately and in the upper 70s, lower 80s. We noticed the bees loitering, especially Matt's, on what I will call the "porch" of the hive in the evening when they would normally be inside the hive. We found out that this behavior is called bearding. They do this when it is hot and humid and they need more ventilation. Matt added a honey super to help with crowding. He also drilled some wine cork sized holes so the bees would have another entrance and more air flow. As you can see, it does kind of look like a beard. Our is more like stubble compared to this first picture from http://www.sweetseattlelife.com (don't know these people, but they sound cool!)

http://www.sweetseattlelife.com

This was taken around 8:00 pm. The bees are just hanging out.

Penstemon, Salvia, Lavender, Wallflower, Daylily 

Chewed Newspaper and Good Weather

It looks like we successfully managed the swarm hive. They had eaten away most of the newspaper and they have been working hard to build new comb. We are hoping that the queen will start laying eggs in the bottom  of the hive because right now there is brood in the honey super. That couldn't be helped though considering that they swarmed and Matt had to put them into a new hive a.s.a.p. They looked good though and we decided to stop feeding the sugar syrup. Matt gave me a turn with the entrance feeder so they didn't have to quit the syrup cold turkey. 

Himalayan Blackberry. Photo by Cheryl Moorehead

It has finally warmed up and stopped raining! It is the middle of the blackberry bloom which is a huge source of nectar for the bees. Nectar is what they use to make honey. When it is raining, the nectar washes away. We are crossing our fingers that the bees can still get enough nectar from the blackberries. 

The bees crack me up when they cling together in chains like circus acrobats!

Matt's hive is doing well too. Matt did scrape off a queen cell. We only found that one, so hopefully the bees aren't getting any ideas . . . Matt also drilled a bee sized hole in his honey super so the bees could have another entrance and more ventilation. The picture was blurry so I will show it next time.

Scraping off burr comb

Lots of bees!

Post Swarm Post

One of the rebel swarmers

After my bees swarmed, and Matt called me at work to tell me, I got home and we tucked the bees in as best as we could and went to bed ourselves. Whew! 

The Aftermath

As the week progressed, and we wondered what the bees were up to. Matt checked on the "old" hive, (the bees that stayed behind and didn't swarm) on Monday or Tuesday to see if there was any larvae or eggs. If the bees don't have any larvae to take care of, there is a risk that one of the workers could start laying eggs and that is not a good thing. So Matt scraped off any queen cells that he found, and kindly donated a frame of brood from his hive, so the bees would have some babies to take care of. While he was working the hive, he just happened to see a skinny little queen!

Usually, new queens are really hard to find because they are small. They need to be able to go out on a mating flight, and if they are too fat they can't fly. When a new queen hatches, she prepares for a mating flight or two, mates, and then comes back to the hive ready to lay eggs. We didn't know where she was in that cycle, but Matt made a quick executive decision to kill that new queen. Another option would have been to keep her and put her in a queen cage just in case we needed her. He also checked to see if my old queen was still with the swarm and she was.

This weekend, Matt's bees were super crabby! It might have been this crappy weather. We did a routine check of his hive and rotated some frames. We both got stung, Matt on the arm and me on the wrist. I guess they just didn't want to be messed with that day, but it's not as if we've had many nice days to pick from to check on them. Matt added an entrance feeder because it won't stop friggin' raining and the blackberry nectar is getting
all washed away.

Entrance Feeder

Can you find the Queen?

No honey yet!

We decided to combine my swarm hive and the old hive so I would have one stronger hive. To start, we checked the old hive and scraped off all the queen cells we could find. To combine the hives, you need to put a layer of newspaper in between them. The bees chew through it, and by the time they are done, they are used to the queen and they won't kill her. We cut slits in the newspaper to give the bees something to bite on to. Then we put the swarm hive on top. 

Swarm hive

Some of the bees that were out foraging were confused at first, and didn't know where to go but they figured it out eventually. We put a screen bottom board on the tall hive so they could have good ventilation and crossed our fingers that the queen survives and that the bees get to work without any more drama. We will check on them next week to see how they are getting along. In the meantime, the peas from the garden are yummy and the blueberries are getting blue!