The Lady Beekeeper

Well after a truly disappointing year with no bees the lady beekeeper is back.  Let me fill you all in where I left off.  Rosalinda (may she rest in peace) and her colony perished at the very end of the winter in early March 2014.  It was only a couple of weeks before the weather broke, but they ran completely out of honey and I still believe it was too cold to feed them at that point.

I ordered another package of bees, this time from the local beekeeper near me.  I also ordered a marked queen since I had so much trouble finding the queen last year.  Installing the package went off without a hitch (mostly, except when I dropped the queen cage into the 5 pounds of worker bees and had to fish it out, swearing under my breath the whole time).

Unfortunately I had to wait over two weeks to check on the queen because the weather was so lousy during the first weekend.  (Ideally you wait for a nice sunny day to open the hive when the bees are out foraging.)  By the time I looked in the hive there was no sign of the queen but there were eggs being laid at odd angles or multiple per cell.  The hive was also overrun with drones!  A telltale sign of laying workers.  My best guess is they killed the queen, then some of the workers started developing ovaries without the queen’s pheromones to suppress them.  When this happens the workers are able to lay eggs, but since they have never actually mated, all the eggs will be unfertilized.  This means only drones will be produced. Drones are the male honeybees, whose sole purpose in life is to mate and die.  If you’re only producing (virtually) useless drones and no worker bees, your colony is pretty much doomed.

Well great.  After discovering this I rushed to the local beekeeping supply where I got the package and purchased a new queen.  Unfortunately, I was in a hurry and didn’t follow the right procedure to rid my hive of the laying workers.  Instead, I sophomorically decided that introducing a new queen would set things right so I did just that.  Shortly after adding the queen I read about laying workers and how normally in this situation the bees will kill the newly introduced queen since they are now loyal to their laying worker(s).  Well great.

This did not happen to me.  Instead they left the queen alone, but the laying workers continued laying.  Apparently they weren’t threatened enough by the new queen to kill her?  Seems odd.  Almost like I got a dud queen.  (Or two dud queens!)  By this point the hive had dwindled considerably and was about 80% drones.  I decided to cut my losses and wrote the colony off as dead since I didn’t think there were enough worker bees to properly correct the laying worker issue.  But I didn’t want that second $30 queen to go to waste.

Luckily my beekeeper co-worker offered to split one of his hives into a nuc cluster (tiny hive box).  So I went back to my hive, recaptured the queen and got her back into the little queen cage.  That took some doing.  I then brought the queen over to my co-worker’s house and we added the queen to his nuc.  Two weeks later he reported they had killed her.  Great.  Definitely not my year for beekeeping.

But did I mention we got a dog?

I forgot to show everyone Will’s video of me searching for the queen!  I was doing one final hive visit while the weather was above 55 and sunny.  I was a bit worried about getting in another visit  before winter set in since it had been in the low 40’s the previous week.  I left work early to get to my hive before the sun started setting.  My main mission: check on honey stores and the queen.

Since it had been so cold I believed the queen’s egg production would have slowed down or stopped by then.  This means the only way to tell if the queen is alive is by actually finding her.  Previously I’ve had a lot of trouble finding Rosalinda since she is unmarked. (Most people will request a “marked” queen that is painted with a small dot on her back.)  I searched for a good 15 minutes in the lower deep and I finally found her!  She is huge compared to the other bees, even the drones who are significantly larger than the workers.  I won’t make you sit through the entire 15 minutes of searching – but Will caught her on tape.  The clip of Rosalinda’s hollywood debut is below!

Well the leaves are changing colors, the days have been getting shorter and we have been BUSY!  I apologize for my drought of updates – we’ve had weddings and a vacation keeping us busy.  Since its been getting cooler the number one bee question I’ve been asked lately is, “what do bees do during the winter?” I thought I’d let you all know.  Its an excellent question.  They certainly don’t fly south – those little wings wouldn’t make it to Rhode Island and back.  Instead they pretty much hunker down in their hive, which we beekeepers have helped fortify.

As the temperatures start to drop in the fall, the bees continue collecting nectar and sap for propolis.  They store the nectar and sugar syrup away as honey for winter food stores and they use the sap to make propolis.  Propolis is a sticky mess initially, but it hardens to a strong orange varnish.  The bees use it to fill in any cracks and holes that may make the hive drafty during the winter.  During this time period the queen slows egg production and they start kicking the drones (male non-worker bees) out of the hive so they don’t have to feed extra mouths.

When the temperatures drops to the low 50’s (F) the bees form what is call the winter cluster. It is exactly what it sounds like – the bees cluster together on top of their honey stores, eat the honey and vibrate causing friction and heat.  The worker bees take turn swapping from the outside of the cluster to the inside.  The queen remains in the center of the cluster the entire winter where temperatures remains in the upper 90’s (F).  While in the cluster she stops laying eggs until spring.

The bees pretty much take care of themselves – but aside from feeding them sugar syrup to replenish their food stores there is a bit beekeepers can do to help.  To further prevent drafts, many beekeepers cover the entire hive with roofing paper.  Unfortunately drafts are not the only thing beekeepers must worry about.  With so much heat generated from the winter cluster, and temperatures so low on the outside of the hive condensation can form without proper ventilation.  Beekeepers must insure proper ventilation for their hives or risk cold condensation dripping onto the bees and killing them.  I researched a bit and discovered that some beekeepers use a product called homosote – an insulating sound-proofing material – for the top of their hives.  In addition to providing insulation, the board will hold moisture caused by condensation.  This prevents it from dripping back down on the bees, but allows the bees to retrieve the water when they need it.

Finally – with the warm temperatures inside the hive the bees will sometimes get freeloaders looking for warmth.  While the bees normally can defend against mice and other critters during warmer weather, they can’t do much when they are vibrating to stay warm.  For this reason beekeepers will add what they call a mouse guard – a metal device at the entrance of the hive that allows the bees to come and go, but is much too small for a mouse.  It is important that the guard be metal since mice are known to chew through wood entrance reducers to get to the warmth inside.

Next time I’ll tell you about my lip gloss making experiment!

So I apologize that I didn’t update last week – I was at a conference for work in Portland, OR.  While I was presenting my poster at the conference one of my co-workers that I hadn’t seen in over a year stopped by to chat about the poster.  After discussing work, the conversation drifted to hobbies – he mentioned how he had several chickens and had been recently raising goats.  Apparently his children were showing the goats in the state fair that week.  While on the topic of agriculture, I mentioned how I started raising bees this year.  His response was that coincidently he’d gotten bees himself.  We chatted for a while about our hives and he mentioned how he decided to get them – he thought it would be a cool hobby to do with his son.  He said initially his son was afraid of bees, but now has warmed up to their honey bees and will sit near the hive to watch them!

This conversation wasn’t at all out of the norm.  I’ve had dozens of experiences like this, meeting fellow beekeepers randomly by mentioning my hobby.  Its almost like its a secret society, where you utter the right word to a fellow member and you have an instant bond.  And this underground beekeeper network is vast – almost everyone I mention beekeeping to has some connection to the hobby.  Most often they have a neighbor, friend or relative who keeps bees, but sometimes they are a beekeeper themself.  A couple months ago my co-worker forwarded my name to one of the managers in the other building – turns out he got his bees the same week I did! (This is a shout out if you’re reading this.)   After that discovery my husband likes to joke that beekeeping is better for networking than learning to golf!