Jan. 3…See the big rotten spot in the middle? All that brown wood is rotten. I removed a huge section of rot already and there’s still some left. I believe it might have been started by nails driven into the tree many years ago. See the next photo.
Three brown streaks are from three old nails. The next time you’re tempted to drive a nail into a tree, think about this photo. I believe these nails started the rot in the tree which resulted in a big rotten spot in the trunk…not visible on the outside of the tree.
Jan. 13…The start of the ‘bowl.’ I want to have a little cavity on the bottom of the hive. I’ll place a pile of sawdust and maybe some leaves to create habitat for sow bugs, earwigs, pseudoscorpions, and whatever else should be living in a tree. When mites fall down, they can get devoured.
Drilling more holes for the ‘bowl.’
Let’s grind it down
Not deep enough yet.
Hope this is deep enough
We’re going to call it good. I’ve got to get the observation window built.
Hal said to drill the corners, then saw up to them. I’m starting my first corners, but I changed my mind after I saw where they broke through didn’t leave much ‘observing’ space.
Jan. 15…After waffling several times over the window, I finally jelled on where it should go. This is it!!!
I’ve been thinking about getting one of these saws for years, finally I have an excuse. Using it, I cut out a place for the glass.
I cut the plexiglass, pushed it down into a curve, and promptly broke it.
I cut a new piece, carved some wooden ‘wedges’ to make the glass lay flat, and fastened it in place.
February 4…The log is almost ready for Brian Vorwaller, but I’ve still got to get the top bars fitted.
Using my new multi-tool saw, I cut a rabbet for the bars to sit on.
My neighbor donated some cedar he didn’t need. I cut my top bars.
Check out this custom-cut top bar. 🙂
Custom fitted top bars in place. Zada just called to say they are coming tomorrow to pick up the log. I’m glad I’m ready.
Well, almost ready. I’ve still got to hollow out this top slab to use as a quilt box. I’m thinking about adding this old birdhouse on the very top. My wife is not 100% on board with that idea, so it’s iffy. As it turns out, Brian Vorwaller didn’t like idea either. He didn’t say it, but I knew it when he says, “Give me another chunk of wood to work with.”
February 14…Brian works the hoist while his Valentine makes sure he’s observing proper safety protocols.
Brian will need about a month or so to carve the three grand kids’ faces onto the log. Zada will videotape the progress. So while I bid adiós to my log for awhile, I know it’s in good hands.
A couple of weeks ago we started seeing bees gather in a little pond beneath the willow tree. It looked like they were sipping the water where moss was growing.
January 22…Three bees spotted on this patch of moss.
Into the moss…
January 22…I’ve heard bees like “dirty” water, so I guess this mossy water is no surprise, but I wonder what they’re getting out of it.
Feb. 2…Being a day of steady drizzle, I checked again to see if the bees were here. Yes, this time I saw more bees. They are truly dedicated bees.
February 3…this photo is taken from a video when it was raining, but it still shows bees that are visiting the moss even though the water is covering most of it.
Some more video of honeybees active in the moss while it’s raining…
Or maybe it’s MY math that’s wrong. Back in September I was worried about Bee-atrice Log hive.
She had swarmed the month before and then the bee numbers were down and more importantly,
the temperature had dropped to 62F (16C). It’s January now and there are loads of bees, so we might be out of the woods.
January 5…Bee-atrice has bees on her face. Lots of bees!
The temperature is fluctuating a lot though.
January 10…temp at 88˙F
January 12…..Temp drops to 70F (21C) 18 degrees in two days? What’s going on?
January 14….Temp is back up to 90F
January 18 (today)…Temperature is holding at about 90F.
I shot some video just because I was happy to see numbers of bees. About a week later they were bringing some pollen. Just to finish off the song by Steve Montana, I added some video of the birdhouse bees. Despite being a small hive in the shade of pine trees for a good three months, they are still holding on, treatment-free. Hold on bees, the pussy willows will be flowering in February.
Back in May 2013, I had an extra swarm to give away and Vernon was in need of a swarm for his self-built Perone hive. We gave him our Mother’s Day Swarm which went into his Perone hive #1. Through Vernon’s updates we’ve learned that the Perone hive that our swarm inhabited, made it through the 2013-2014 winter treatment-free. Vernon built a second Perone hive which he populated with some packaged bees. The following is the story of the second Perone hive…
In Vernon’s words from January 5, 2015…For almost a month the activity at the entry of my newer hive has been near zero. At first I thought the colony was settled in for the Winter, but the weather has been mild and the older hive was still somewhat active. So today I opened the shutters and found that my colony had failed. Although there were a few dead bees left in the hive, it appears that the majority absconded. It’s a clear case of Colony Collapse Disorder. My heart is broken, but I decided to take some pictures to document the failure, in hopes of helping other beekeepers.
2015-01-05…It’s difficult to remove the comb from a Perone brood box. I broke two combs, which isn’t too bad.
Here’s a view from the other side.
Maybe some of the local beekeepers will be able to help me do a post mortem. Some of the comb is very dark, almost black. Is that mold or mildew I’m seeing?
The spaces between the combs appears generally uniform.
This close-up shows that most of the cells were empty, and the black substance was pervasive.
Although this comb measures an impressive 19.5 inches in width, it was, in the end, non-functional. Most of the cells are empty, and those that are capped are covered with that black substance.
It appears that brood was developing when the colony absconded.
A few dead bees remain, but the most concerning thing about the floor is the black mold (or whatever it is).
Close-up of the Black Death and some of its victims. The hive was always very moist inside. Maybe next time I’ll slant the floor, or drill some holes, or make some other provision for drainage.
A solitary worker clings in death to the comb she helped build and fill. You and your mates worked tirelessly, little friend, and I’m sure you’re all in bee heaven now. Hail and farewell!
Vernon wrote yesterday his recent thoughts…”I’ve got a plausible hypothesis for the cause of this hive failure. Some beekeepers equalize the populations of adjacent hives by trading frames. This is supposed to discourage robbing. Early this Spring my Hive #1 probably had close to 100,000 bees. I located Hive #2 adjacent to it, populated with at most 12,000 bees from a 3 pound package. Not smart. Bees from Hive #1 were probably robbing Hive #2 from the start.
Going back over my old photos it’s clear that the new bees built a lot of comb that never got filled, even though they brought back a lot of food and produced a lot of brood. Wouldn’t that indicate robbery from their stores?
Stocking the hive with package bees may have made robbing more likely. The queen was a Carniolan type and the workers were Italians, derived from a number of hives. The brood was Carniolan, so the Italian workers were nursing juvenile bees with a different pheromone signature. That may have desensitized the colony to the unfamiliar pheromones of bees from outside the colony.
Bee-atrice log hive is on the left. The inner tube is a draft reducer, not what it looks like, so no snide remarks!
Here’s a better shot of Bee-atrice log hive. The blue tarp in the background is protecting my Tower of Jewelsechium plants and artichokes. I’m hoping they will bloom this year because the nectar is so good for the bees and they’ll bloom all summer.
The outside temperature is a frosty 34˙F. Barely above freezing. It’s no wonder the bees aren’t flying today.
While the outside temperature is 34˙F (1˙C), the inside is 50˙F (10˙C), which means there is something warm inside. Someone should have cleaned off the cob webs before he shot the photo. 🙂
Looking through the observation window of Bee-atrice Log Hive reveals lots of honey. It’s such an improvement over last year’s status of ‘no bees.’
This hive in the tree swarmed three times during summer. Two went to Bob and one we transferred into Del’s Warre hive below.
Del’s Warre hive…the bees came from the green hive in the tree. After hanging on the pine tree for about three days, I tried to get them to crawl into an inverted swarm catcher scented with lemon grass oil. No luck. They finally disappeared. I thought, “Good, I’ve got enough hives,” only to find them on a branch of this spruce tree. After they had hung out for a total of 6 days, I dropped them into this hive that I had planned to donate to the bee club. Lost it…see below.
Del’s hive catches the afternoon sun. Some bees responded to the warmth and gathered outside.
12-31-14…Birdhouse bees. These bees came from Mayor Mary’s backyard birdhouse swarm. When I couldn’t get them to move into my new Warre, I ‘posted’ them here. Today they are not flying. Too cold. You can see frost on the ground in front. They are in the shade possibly until March.
A closer look at the birdhouse bees still shows no bee activity. Guess I’ll have to wait til it warms up. This hive is in the coldest part of the property. If they make it, it’ll be because they are strong bees, not because I treated them.
Warre 3…These bees came from Warre 2, May 10, 2014. They built up fast but only in the top box. This ‘shelter’ leaves something to be desired because every time we get a stiff wind, the sheets of fiberglass blow off, thus the reason for the tie down. Lost it…see below.
So there it is…from three hives a year ago to eight hives this year. As a third year natural beekeeper, I believe in letting my bees swarm. I like the article written by British beekeeper John Haverson that “Swarming Bees are Healthy Bees,” so I don’t destroy the queen cells or otherwise try to thwart their natural tendency to swarm.
I go against the recommendations of my local bee association which advises to kill the varroa mites. I know there are beneficial mites in the hive. According to long time beekeeper Michael Bush, who wrote “The Practical Beekeeper,” there are over 30 kinds of mites in a typical hive. If you are killing varroa mites, you are upsetting the ecology of the hive. I think we should let the bees adapt to living with mites. Conversely, if we poison the mites, they will eventually build up a resistance at the expense of the bees.
Since we have just started winter, I know that it’s possible that some hives won’t make it, especially if I choose not to feed them. Those would be the weak hives. As a fairly new beekeeper I’m constantly questioning whether I’m doing the right thing. Right now, I am of the mindset that we should not be propping up weak hives because we will be passing on weak genetics. In my humble opinion when you capture a swarm, you should not kill that queen, but keep her with the swarm. She has survived the winter and proven herself. All my bees have come from swarms.
If my bees can make it to early February, the pussy willows will bloom and weather permitting, nectar and pollen will be available in a critical stage of winter.
Yesterday I noticed honeybees on the gorse blossoms down the road from me. This was a happy surprise because I don’t usually see bees on gorse blossoms possibly because gorse is harder to work (or so I’m told), but if there’s nothing else available, the bees will be able to get nourishment. Some individuals around here hate the gorse. It’s spiny thorns make it impossible to walk near, it grows prolifically, and it’s blamed for burning the town in the big 1936 fire.
March 4th note…We lost Del’s hive. It’s not a surprise because it never really built up any ‘honey weight’ pre-winter. I haven’t taken it apart yet, but when I do, I’ll clean it out, put in observation windows, and donate it back to the bee club.
We lost #3 Warré too. I took it down last week after I saw robber bees visiting it. There was still some capped honey in the combs. About 125 bees were dead on the bottom. Some of the combs were moldy, so I’m guessing it’s been dead for awhile. Both hives were weak hives. While I’m upset at having lost them, I’m thinking that maybe it’s for the best because if the bees can’t survive in our relatively mild winter, maybe they shouldn’t be in the gene pool. I’m down to six hives now, but the willow tree has been blooming for about three weeks and I can see the bees bringing in orange pollen and that means nectar too!
Since mid November this giant Oregon Grape Holly, (mahonia aquifolium) has been blooming and it’s likely to keep blooming into January the way the weather has been. Most people can’t believe it, but I’m happy to see so many of my bees getting nourishment from it. How do I know they’re mine? I’m sure I recognized them. 🙂
My next log hive to bee…When I was puzzling over what unique carving I should have on it, what indeed, could possibly be a step up from Bee Beard or Bee-atrice, my paper salesman, John Wise, suggested a carving of my three grand kids. It didn’t take me long to realize they would be perfect. I better check with Brian Vorwaller, the wood carver.
Measuring the log to determine how much surface area is needed for three faces.
Brian draws the place he wants the bee cavity. We’ve got to leave about a 4 inch thickness for the kids’ faces.
November 5, 2014…On an unusually warm November day, I spotted these hebes growing in front of Bill Sweet Insurance Agency. The bees were loving it. Thanks, Bill.
While the east coast is getting hammered by the polar vortex cold weather, the west coast is enjoying warm sunny days into early November. At this time of year there are very few sources of nectar, so it’s good that the honeybees are getting a lot from the hebes. Nectar provides an important energy source (carbohydrate) for the bees.
Many thanks to Steve Montana who has let me use his musical talents as background to the video. “GaelaMae On The Bluffs” was written by Steve and the banjo music was written by Buell Kasey back in the late 1800’s. Watch Steve Montana play banjo at the beginning of Sustainable World. Click on “Soldier’s Joy.”
Adventures in Natural Beekeeping 