I've been a BAD Blogger!

Well, I guess I'm not doing so well keeping this blog updated, huh? Part of it is due to the novelty wearing off a little, I guess. Where as before I would run to the computer as soon as I did something new with the bees, now I put it off for weeks. Since this blog is serving as my record for all of my bee doings, I better get back with the program.

Since last we wrote, several events have occurred in the Holster beeyard. To begin with, the girls have had several visitors since July. Their fame has spread and they are often the first thing on the agenda for our guests. Various cousins, in-laws, and friends have tested their fortitude in seeing how close they can dare venture up to the hives and take a peek. Some have been fearless, others not so fearless. All have exhibited a deep curiosity in these little critters and what they do. My 89-year-old mother-in-law stood right beside the hives, examined them closely and asked many questions. Others, who will remain nameless Joe, kept a sizeable amount of real estate between themselves and our little heros. Either way, the girls were popular attractions and of course, I didn't mind holding court describing every nuance of bee culture. Not all of my hobbies have had such an effect on others.

With the increased mite count that I referred to in the last entry I had planned to pick up some confectioners sugar and a sifter so that I could douse the bees and hopefully, as a result, reduce the population of mites. I finally got around to that a couple of weeks back and though the girls didn't seem to appreciate the procedure at first, they quickly set about cleaning up the mess. My procedure was to set each super on my picnic table and sprinkle them their before returning the supers to the hive. This worked out well but the table ended up covered with powdered sugar that the bees cleaned up with vigor. By the next morning you wouldn't know that the sugar had ever been there. Hopefully, this treatment along with a normal reduction in mites going into the fall will keep the bees healthier.

During the process of sugaring the bees I examined the hives down to the brood boxes. As I mentioned in a previous entry, I had installed inner covers below my honey supers in order for the bees to move those stores down into the brood boxes. The idea being that my supers could be cleaned out and ready to go for spring. All five shallow supers were completely filled with capped honey but they showed no signs that the bees had begun moving anything south. Several bees toiled about the comb but initially, there seemed to be so few of them that I worried that most of the bees had flown away. I was relieved when I saw that the hives were jam-packed with bees below these inner covers. Still, it was a little disconcerting to see that the supers were still honey-filled after a month sitting above the inner covers. The bees had also propolized the inner covers to the tops of frames below so thoroughly that I had to literally dismantle the inner covers to get them off the hives. Likewise, the frames themselves were locked in tight. The Arlington girls seem to be the propolis queens as their hive is routinely dripping with the stuff and working the hive is always more of a challenge because of it.

The real problem I was faced with though was what to do with these supers of honey. It might seem obvious that I should just extract it and bottle it up but I'm fairly sure that most of it was produced from the gallons of sugar syrup I had been feeding the bees through the middle of August and so it wasn't the sort of honey that would be suitable for keeping. I also don't have the facilities yet for extracting the honey which means I would have to prevail upon one of my mentors to use their equipment. If the honey was not the best for human comsumption I wouldn't want to waste someone's time dealing with it. So in the end, I figured I would just leave it all for the bees to help them through winter. I'd estimate that there is probably at least 80 lbs. of honey in each hive. Having removed the inner covers and thus creating two large hives, four to five boxes tall, I imagine the bees will do what nature prescribes and use the next couple of months to orient their household in such a way to help them best face the winter. I'll feed them a 2:1 mixture of syrup again in October to help them replace any stores they use in the meantime and give them a dose of medicine to help them fend off Nosema this winter.

As the weather has turned colder at night, I've noticed a higher mortality rate amongst the girls. Each morning, before work, I'll take a look at the hive and usually I can expect to find up to a dozen dead bees littering the landing board. Interspersed with these are a half dozen dead larvae. I'm guessing that these are the result of what is called "chilled brood" and has come about because of the drop in temperatures. The Georgia hive seems to be having a larger die-off than Arlington. Interestingly, I still see a fair number of drones active at the entrance. I would have thought, going by the books I've read, that these guys would have been run off by now. I guess there must be adequate amounts of food entering the hive, or we can chalk it up to the bee's notorious reluctance to read books.

Well, until next time.

Sting count: Holding at 15! Yay!!!