Splitting the Porch Bees

Thanks to some TLC and a warm winter, the porch bees needed more room.

Porch Bees: Before

Splitting a hive is basically an inspection that results in dividing the frames with food and brood. The queen is left in the "old" hive or moved, and the group that doesn't get a queen must have a frame of freshly laid eggs to create a new queen.

We suited up and had the cushy accommodations of the porch chair for Mark and shade for me during this process.

We were surprised to see nearly every frame was filled with brood or food -- the queen really needed more space to continue her work!

The drone brood is at the bottom of the frame, poking out a bit.

The Pollen Smorgasboard

 We never saw the queen, but we saw plenty of evidence that she is a fabulous, busy lady, so we're hopeful the new colony will convert one of her eggs into a new queen. Each deep super with frames from the original colony was topped with a deep super of empty frames.

Porch Bees: After

Happy New Year, Friends!

January 1st is a special day -- it's our anniversary. Today Mark and I are celebrating four years of married life! He's so handsome!

Yesterday I made a new batch of bee tea, as warmer weather has seen the bees out flying. In fact, on Friday, they were experiencing traffic problems at the entrances to the hives on Bee Hill to the point they appeared to be bearding! The entrance reducers may keep out mice, but on warm Mississippi winter days, they also keep out the bees. I'm happy to report that all of the hives on Bee Hill appear to be thriving so far this winter.

Porch bees with pitcher of tea and feeder, back view.

Mark lifts the cover off the bees across the road.

One brave bee near the hole in the feeder board.

Today, we put clean feeders on two hives -- the one on the porch that is a single deep super, and the one over at our neighbor's place. The feeder across the road was a science fair project -- badly crystallized sugar had completely blocked the area where the bees access the feed. The feeder was nearly full of unused bee tea, and caked over with sugar crystals and dead ants. Blech! Although I followed the recipe, for some reason this batch of bee tea didn't stay liquid as long as it should have. Hopefully the new batch will be used quickly by the bees so they can benefit from it.

Surprisingly, we saw two different types of wildflowers in bloom. I recognized the purple henbit, but not the yellow flower. One day I'll get a proper book and learn these things as I should. We're delighted there's something out there for the bees to forage on when they come out on warm days.

If you want honey, we have just a few small jars left.  Let me or Mark know and we'll get it to you. Thanks for your continued support and interest. We love sharing our honey and bee stories with you!

A Failed Hive at Barhams' Bee Yard

Mark spent most of yesterday doing bee yard maintenance.  When he got home, he was tired, sore, and bothered.  One of the hives at Barhams' Bee Yard appeared to be in great distress and queenless.

Due to other work, he'd not inspected those hives in a month. When he was there 2 weeks ago, he said he noted the bee traffic appeared fine going in and out of all of the hives.  He said he'd likely take the porch bees to see if he could save the bees that were left in the struggling hive.

When I got up this morning, he'd been awake since 1:40 a.m., researching.  His conclusion: the bees he saw were robbing the hive. He suspects the original hive -- which has been weak all along -- finally gave up, and the other bees are removing the honey from the frames to store for winter.

"The top super had no honey in it at all," he said. "It was dry as a bone."

His plan of action is to leave the hive for a couple more days to see if the bees will rob all of the honey out, then retrieve the entire hive so wax moths don't set up shop.  We'll store the empty honey frames in our deep freezer until the spring, when he'll split a strong hive and give it a queen to start a new colony.

So much for bragging we'd made it through the season without any losses.

Frost this morning!

Just a couple days after 90+ degree temperatures, autumn has blown in. On my way to work this morning, I spotted swathes of frost in the shady areas.  Brrrr.

Time to put on the entrance reducers!  Here's hoping we've managed our bees and honey well enough to see them through the winter.  I'm sure we'll keep feeding the bees on the porch for a while.

Porch Bees (a new batch)

These bees were once part of a bee tree on the local Air Force base. The tree had to come down. They wanted Mark to try to save the bees, and he got a few, but not the queen. The bulk of the colony was crushed when the tree came down. There wasn't time to do a trap out.

He rescued some of their own comb.

They've struggled. Mark has fed them a bunch, given them frames with eggs to make a new queen, to no avail. He's pondered what to do since they haven't appeared to have created a queen for themselves and it's late in the season to get one.

 
I just know we like having them around. I think that makes us weird.

Oh, yeah. We were weird *before* we had porch bees.

UPDATE: Mark combined a hive from a neighbor's garden with the porch bees. When he checked them 9/25, he saw a "big, fat queen, laying like crazy" which is great news.  They're getting a steady diet of sugar syrup to help them build up stores. My fingers are crossed.