2025.06.22: Beekeeping, year #3
2025-06-22 13:27 by Ian
Winter is rough
Both of my hives perished this past winter. Root cause appears to be insufficient numbers to heat the volume of the hive. I left the super on the stronger of the two hives, and that choice may have killed them. The brood box was completely stripped of food, but they had plenty of food in the super. I believe they were unable to access the super because it was too cold. So they starved in the midst of plenty.
Regardless of the metabolic costs, I would not trade my endothermy for anything.
So they needed to be reestablished from scratch. My mentor brought a NUC, which took hold fairly easily. In about six weeks, that NUC had grown into a thriving hive that was producing queen cells. I'd prefer to have a minimum of two hives, and so we chose to direct the bee's efforts into making more bees, versus honey. So we split the hive at this point.
In May, we accidentally killed the original queen while trying to mark her. She got flooded with impermeable ink and died a few days later. So we ended up re-queening that hive. Meanwhile, the new hive had a healthy virgin queen. Until she safely returns from her mating flight, the hive's future is precarious.
Recently-acquired knowledge
- If they have time to plan, the hive will make queen cells in a location in the hive that is convenient for them. But if a queen dies, and there are no queen cells, they will hastily construct queen cells over the top of existing egg cells which are yet undifferentiated.
- If no undifferentiated eggs can be found, the workers might begin laying. Being as they are unfertilized, they could only possibly produce haploid males this way. This has never happened in my hive, so I am still unsure what to do if I notice it.
- Foraging workers might be away for as many as four days.
- If workers return to a hive with a different queen than it had when they left, they will try to kill the replacement queen. So the new queen must be installed after four days have elapsed with no queen cells from the original brood.
- Even after four days, the new queen will likely be attacked by some of the old brood. So she (and her retinue of workers) must be placed in the hive in a manner that keeps the two broods segregated to prevent combat.
- After full induction into the hive, a new queen might start laying in a corner of the hive.
- You can aim the hive in a preferential foraging direction.
- There exist special "drone frames" to encourage the bees to make males. This is used as a varroa destructor control technique, since varroa prefers to infest drone cells.
- Vitex agnus castus provides large amounts of nectar. Maybe I'll plant a few next year.
- Drones produce about 1uL of semen.
- A "fully-mated" queen will take about 12uL of semen.
- If you are going to move a hive, do it at night to give the workers time to return home.
- A blank frame (no comb) placed into the hive might be perceived as a boundary. Be sure to interleave new frames with drawn frames to encourage the bees to fill the entire hive box.
- Fumigating a hive with oxailic acid must be done below 70-degrees, otherwise the hive may kill the queen when they become unable to smell her.
- When fumigating, be sure to plug the hive exit to prevent the bees from attacking you.
- A queen removed from the hive for as few as 30-minutes might be enough to estrange the hive, which will kill her upon reintroduction.
- Do not use more than 1g of oxailic acid for fumigating a brood box. Overdosing the hive will make it more likely to turn on its queen.
Update 2025.06.25: I captured my first swarm.
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