As a newbie beekeeper I thought the bees just kept within the hive during the winter, leaving the hive infrequently. I know things are different on the coast because we rarely get snow, but we get loads of cold winds and driving rains. So it’s to my surprise that the bees are so active. They are actually bringing in pollen during January and early February. I’m hoping the yellow pollen is gorse, because everyone around here hates gorse so much (with good reason…it’s blamed for burning the town down in 1936), I’d like to know gorse is good for something, especially since it usually blooms early February.
I’m concerned about the Warre hive. The top video shows the front of the hive with the bees bringing in yellow and orange pollen and through the observation window in back. I’d like some advice from more knowledgeable beekeepers about what to do. I almost nadired another box underneath, had planned for the forecasted hottest part of the day at 55 deg.F (12 deg.C) but then the temperature turned cool. Should I add another box so they can grow into it before they swarm or should I wait for a few more weeks because the winter weather will return the latter part of February and into March? Another box means they have to heat it. I’ve got a dry sugar pad above the box as a just in case food source.
The log hive below looks very strong, lots of activity whenever the sun comes out and the temps are in the 50’s (10 C) bringing in pollen during January and February. Those bees came from a feral tree hive. I’m leaving them alone to fend for themselves. I’m hoping the hive will act as an undisturbed ecosystem…bees adapting to survive mites and other pests.
Hope to have another log hive in place before they swarm.
A long time beekeeper in the bee association warned me to expect 50% winter losses. I thought to myself which hive am I going to lose, the one I’m reluctantly feeding or the log hive?
I realize this is only the beginning of winter, but both hives have already come through hurricane-force winds, weeks of steady rain, and a few recent frosty mornings. The sun finally came out this weekend and to my happy surprise, both hives are still flying, even though the temperature was a mere 50 deg. F (10 deg. C) The log hive is still bringing in a surprising amount of pollen.
I was able to shoot the 2nd part of this video with my new camera that sports a 50x zoom. I don’t have to get as close to the hive now. 🙂
Here’s a photo of the bottom board taken the next day…Some more experienced beekeepers say you can tell what’s inside the hive by reading the bottom board. I see flakes of wax, but I’m not sure about the rest of it…
Warre Hive Floor Board…Learning how to read the floor board. The layout of the bars are parallel with the bottom of this board. What do you see?
When it’s cold the bees hang out in the lower left of hive.
Here is Bernhard Zaunreiter’s assessment of my little Warre Hive…
Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 8:09 am Post subject:
It is a very small colony. But since they made it until now, they most probably make it through winter and until Spring. It will be a difficult time in Spring, when the old winter bees die off and have to be replaced with young bees just in time. Just make sure you protect them from robbing in Spring. A big colony will surely assault such a small colony and wipe them out of life. So reduce and watch the entrance.Such a moldy floor only can be found in small colonies. The black stuff on the right of the picture is mold. It won’t harm the bees for now. So no worries. The black dirt ist bug poo, I think the hive has quite some wax moths. The common woodlice are wintering within the hive, but won’t harm the bees much. You could clean the floor board regularily, so you can notice the differences over the time. Once the first stripes and pollen appear on the board, they started brooding. Wipe the mold off with some vinegar, washing and drying it afterwards with a hair dryer.Plenty of stores, so no worries about that. Maybe you scrape open some honey cells from above in Spring, so the honey draws moisture and can be eaten up more quickly, leaving empty cells to lay eggs into. Just some combs at a time. The most critical thingin Spring are empty cells.
Sandi works for a company that orders printing from me all the time. Whenever she would call, I’d bore her with my excitement about bees. At that point I didn’t have any bees and was building swarm bait hives, wondering where I could place them, and in general being hyper about getting some. Eventually, I got some bees. So when Sandi called in late June to say she had a swarm on her property and didn’t want them because she was allergic, I felt obligated to get them. She had suffered through my bee-brain ramblings, so I better come through. I was still smarting from the feral bee hive transfer to Bee Beard Log Hive and didn’t want a third hive, but there was a couple whose daughter had built them a top bar hive that needed bees. I called them and yes, they still wanted bees.
I’m sure there are better ways to capture a swarm. These bees were snug against the trunk of a small fir tree. I couldn’t bend the tree over the bucket to shake them in so I just sort of ‘brushed’ them into the bucket…watching for the bees to stick there rear ends up and fan the pheramone…”the queen is in the bucket.” Hearing the grandkids exclamations are priceless.
I don’t understand it. I got stung 25 times when transferring bees into Bee Beard and didn’t swell up as much as this time with only 5 stings!
I’m happy to report my Bee Beard log hive came through the hurricane-force winds without getting blown over. The bamboo and ‘staked’ hay bales must have protected it enough.
Since we are new to beekeeping we try to pay attention to the advice of more experienced beekeepers. We have been warned about robber bees attacking the hive…robbing the honey. I shot this video in an effort to find out if my log hive is getting robbed. I don’t know whether these are robber bees or just the normal activity of the hive. They are still bringing in pollen so I’m assuming (naively?) it’s all normal behavior. The bees came from a feral hive in a tree on private property. Maybe it’s strong enough to defend itself.
A short video of my Warre Hive is included. Much less activity can be seen around the Warre. Is it because I’m feeding them sugar? Maybe the bees don’t feel the need to venture out.
It’s early November when the clouds parted and the sun popped out. The day started warming and the bees started flying. It had been overcast and rainy for about a week, so I guess the bees were anxious to get out, but I was surprised to see so much pollen coming back in. The Warre hive had bees flying but not returning with the ‘gobs’ of pollen like the log hive…could it be because I’m feeding sugar to the Warre hive and not to the log hive?
I have no idea what kind of pollen they are bringing back. Nothing is blooming in the garden but rosemary and borage and I don’t see many bees on it. Is this normal behavior this late in the year? Comments are appreciated.
After reading the comment from Emily Heath, I started looking around the area for ivy. To my surprise it was growing all over the place. It’s one of those things that you don’t see until someone points it out to you. I had to get close to see the blossoms and that’s when I saw the bees. I hope some of them came from my hives.
When I decided to place my new Bee Beard Log Hive I considered many things. I wanted it placed where it would get the morning sun shining into the entrance, well beyond the long reach of the tree shadows in winter, and protected from the raging winter winds that blast from the southwest. Also I wanted the hive to be visible if possible, on the edge of the garden, so we could observe the bees whenever we worked outside. The placement of the hive in front of the bamboo satisfied all the requirements. What I didn’t know is that bamboo attracts wasps. When I started seeing all the wasps on the bamboo I started to panic. What are they doing around my log hive? I started recalling the stories at the bee meeting about all the hives that are lost to wasps. How did I know bamboo attracts wasps? Is that common knowledge?
Wasp on Bamboo leaf over Bee Beard log hive.
The bamboo was leaning over the log hive…are the wasps going to attack my bees? What to do?
I plugged the last gap by stuffing the inner tube into it. Wasps won’t get in here
Found a piece of bamboo that fit the 1 1/2″ (3.81 cm) hole. This reduces the hole making it easier to guard against wasps.
After consulting the internet about bamboo I found out that wasps gather fibers from the bamboo for their paper nests. That’s what they are doing on the bamboo, not attacking the log hive,
We feel that wasps have a place in our garden. We won’t kill them because they really aren’t bothering us or the bees, The ground hive is almost never used the next year and once the cold weather hits, it will be inactive.
I shot a short video showing the wasps on the bamboo as well as the very active ground hive.,,
When I first saw the insect in this web, I thought it was one of my bees because it’s in the flight path to the Bee Beard Log Hive. I was much relieved when I realized it was a wasp. Over the next few days of checking her web I was able to capture some very close up video of “Fang” wrapping her victims and injecting them with her venom. Here’s a creepy video accompanied by some creepy music provided by my brother, Elliott.
If you hate wasps, you’ll love this video…if you hate spiders, you’ll be happy they are smaller than we are.
Back in February, I listened to a podcast interview with Matt Reed of Beethinking.com. He talked about the Warre Hive. Now I didn’t really want to get into another type of hive, but it sounded so intriguing and easy to use, I decided to give it a try. I liked the idea that the boxes stacked in a vertical orientation, mimicking a hollow tree. It sounded like the most ‘natural’ type of hive that wasn’t actually a tree. I also liked Matt’s approach of not using any chemicals inside his hives. So I ordered a kit with observation windows and a screened bottom in case I wanted to do a mite count.
I didn’t want to order package bees because they might not be acclimated to the wet area we have on the Oregon Coast. I had passed up the ordering date and was nervously waiting for my bait hives to catch a swarm, but nothing was happening. Then I got the call about a swarm that had just formed about an hour ago. I threw everything into the car and was on my way.
A Swarm in a Bush…A made-in-heaven low swarm for my first experience.
A Swarm in a Bucket…I was able to cut branches and shake most of the bees into this 5 gallon bucket.
A Swarm in the Warre Transferring the swarm into the Warre was easy…tap the bucket on the ground once or twice, then pour into the hive. I replaced the bars on top, installed the quilt box and the roof.
Did I get the queen? Bees can be seen fanning the pheramone that the queen is ‘in the building’!
July 7, 2012 This shows how much natural comb they built in about 5 weeks. I wonder when they will start on the bottom box.
I anxiously wait. The bees don’t build into the bottom box. I consult the forums where suggestions are made to add an empty box overhead. “The bees don’t like having an empty space over them.” On July 23, 2012, I add a third box, this time on top.
After I drilled a 3/4″ hole for the bees in the top box, I waxed up some top bars and put the whole thing in place.
July 24, 2012. I like this…I can get a view through the observation window looking down at the occupied middle box or up to the top bars in the top box.
August 3, 2012 A view of the comb in the middle box…still no building in the top or bottom box.
August 20,2012 Looking into the Warre, plenty of bees, plenty of honey,..but they are STILL not building any comb in either the top or bottom box.
I consult the forums…”can a Warre get through the winter on only one box?” It’s getting late in the summer and my efforts to get them to build either on top or in the bottom box have been fruitless. The answers seem to imply I’m a reckless beekeeper if I don’t consider feeding them.
Partially built feeder box for Warre
After looking at the forums, I found the answer. Build a feeder that is accessible from the outside. If it becomes necessary to feed the bees I can do it without opening the hive up to the cold air. The hive is kept intact with no extra holes drilled into it for the sugar water.
I want to thank Colobeekeep for providing photos of how he built this.
Front view of feeder box on right side of Warre
Back view of feeder box on Warre
Lid open, no jar yet. Bees can access the sugar water, but not the feeder box. Bottle can be changed without opening the hive. It’s placed near the rear of the hive to discourage robbing.
I really DON’T want to resort to feeding them. From what I read, sugar raises the pH of the hive making it more susceptible to Nosema, but I also don’t want to lose this little hive. I definitely won’t use High Fructose Corn Syrup because it is made from GM corn which is treated with clothianidin, a systemic insecticide highly toxic to bees. I’ll pay close attention to the honey stores by looking through the observation window. If they get low I’ll be able to supply either 1:1 or 1:2 sugar water without opening the hive.
This short video looks into the Warre hive through the observation window (slight reflection issues) to see waggle dancing and daisy-chaining. The last frame shows the natural comb built as a result of the daisy-chain.
More Waffling…After going to the work of building the ‘side feeder,’ I observed the comments made about moisture in the hive. Well, I’m not going to say we live in a rain forest, but we do get buckets in the winter time. Should I worry about the moisture issues…yes. Okay, I’ll build an over-the-top ‘dry sugar’ feed frame.
This shows the sugar resting on the 1/2″ hardware cloth. After this photo was taken, I dumped out the sugar and inserted a layer of blank newsprint between the sugar and the wire. That should hold up the sugar so it won’t drop down into the hive…I hope.
Sugar pressed into frame ready to slide into place
Installing sugar feeder Oct. 25, 2012. This will let the bees go upward to access the sugar from within the cluster. Quilt box goes on top. Then I wrapped with red tape to seal the cracks.
When I checked with some coastal beekeepers at the bee meeting, they said they feed with sugar syrup, no problem. “Don’t you worry about the moisture issues?” “No.”
In years’ past, we grew dozens of sunflowers of all types. This year…very few. Of the few that we planted, only four decided to grow. Of the four, only one was big enough to draw any visitors. This is the one.
My best sunflower this year
This might be the bug/beetle which appears in the video taken two days previous. It was on the flower part but jumped to the leaf while I was getting the camera switched on and focused.
Growing poppies is a long term affair. We planted these under lights in the house. After two to three weeks in a plastic bag to keep it moist, the very fine seeds have sprouted.
Poppies ready to be transplanted into bigger pots. The plants in the foreground are St. John’s Wort (Hypericum).
The poppy seed was planted in February. It is just now blooming in September. I think we’ll start earlier if we want poppies in spring or summer for the bees next year.
Here’s the beautiful result of our labor of love…
The poppy has finally opened up. I wonder when the bees will find it.
A couple of days after this first one opened up, we had a bee doing something strange (to me). It faced away from the center of the flower, beating her wings rapidly, vibrating the pollen off the stamen and onto her body. After getting a layer of purple pollen, she landed on the outside of the flower and groomed herself with her middle legs, pulling the pollen off her back and into her pollen baskets. It was incredible. I had my little pocket camera with me and got some video of it.
Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 8:09 am Post subject:
Adventures in Natural Beekeeping 