New Queen and New Markers

It's been a stressful month around here. My last update was about Kosnica's swarm. Since then I have been watching for the new queen in Kosnica to hatch and return from mating!

While I was patient (read NOT) I decided to work on some markers for the hives. Each hive has a rock on top to keep the lid on snug. I want to paint the hives but really have not had the spare time to committ. (I think that is more of a winter project.) So in the meantime my daughter and I had some fun painting rocks....

 

Rock painting is actually quite fun and my daughter has already asked to do it again. We used acrylic paint and sprayed it with varnish once dry. They turned out really nice. It will be interesting to see how they stand up to the extreme changes in weather on the top of the hives.

Ok, back to the queen! Kosnica was quite agitated during its weekly inspections. They were clearly not happy with their situation.  The last couple weeks were the hardest since there is such a large variance (2 weeks!!) when you can see evidence of the queen (eggs). I was pretty anxious and prepared for the worst.

Here is a general timeline for a new queen:

For those of you trying to do the math here is my best guess on where Kosnica was in the timeline: 

• June 21st, the hive swarmed. Typically they swarm before the queen cell is capped, which they did. 
• June 28th, when I inspected the queen cell was capped. (I do not know how long before or after my inspection it was capped- so you see the problem). Being on the conservative side, I should have started to see eggs between July 11th and the 25th.
• July 21st inspection I did not see any eggs, however honestly, I did not thoroughly go through both brood boxes. I was overheated and the bees were crabby. I should have taken more time.
• My last inspection, July 29th, I was planning to go frame by frame to make sure the queen was not there. This is where I pick up the story...

Since I did not see eggs on my last visit to Kosnica, I had feared the worst. What was I going to do? Try to find a queen this late in the summer? Then I realized- I had a queen. Alveare is still a very weak colony but has a queen. So I began to make plans on merging Kosnica with Alveare. In preparation, I spent several days researching how to merge two hives. I had it all planned out for the next day if I did not find any eggs.

I needed to go very slowly and spend my time looking carefully. I removed three honey supers and a deep box filled with honey and went into the top brood box first. Imagine my relief when the second frame into the brood box I found eggs!! I cheered (maybe actually squealed) with delight. I quickly closed up the hive so she could continue with her job of building up the colony. 

For now I am going to focus on what I can do to help out Alveare. We will see what honey I end up with from the other two hives. Until next time, that's the buzz!

Blessings!

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What's that Buzz?

My hive last year was so compliant. They only drew in the lines and were very pleasant overall. PLUS they gave me over one hundred pounds of honey. This year on the other hand, my hives are challenging me constantly. In this post I will share some more of their antics of late. First, since I have a few hives I will be discussing, I will give you a little bit of background on each of them before I get too far into my latest update. I named each colony so I could keep them straight. They are all named "hive," but in different languages.

Alveare (Italian for hive) is where Athena is. The hive started out as an Italian race of honey bees however I am not sure what Athena is, I would say is is most likely Italian. She is our new queen whom I have written about. On my last two checks she has been there however her brood pattern is spotty. The picture on the left is from this hive. See if you can find Athena, she is marked with a white dot.

I am hoping this colony picks up soon so they have a better chance to survive out long winter here in Minnesota. Currently they only cover about three to four frames. Only time will tell if she will be able to build a strong enough colony before winter set in. Lets pray for a long summer and fall.

Panj (Slovenian for hive) is an Carniolan colony which is doing very well. I used Panj to help Athena along when she was first introduced. Panj is the colony I switch locations with Alveare so it lost the foraging bees that day. However it is still going strong and in fact on last inspection I found the queen (unmarked) and was so excited. Its really hard with so many bees! They are currently running strong with three full deeps and are making extra honey. If you look at this picture you can see very few empty cells, this queen is a super star. Those are all baby bees in those cells soon to be born.

Kosnica (Croatian for hive) is an Italian based colony and has always been the strongest hive. It filled its three deep boxes and received its honey supers a good week before Panj. However with that comes some bee-attitude. In mid-May this hive had started a queen cup on one of its frames which freaked me out a bit. A queen cup is the start of a queen cell. The location of the cup made it a supercedure cell. Meaning if they filled it they were planning on replacing the queen. Talk about stress for me! Losing a queen is huge with our short season. False alarm, the queen cup was never filled and was gone by next inspection. However as you will see this is not the end of Kosnica's shenanigans...

So let's get back to where I left you last... Athena was out of her cage and doing well. My plan was to let her be for a couple weeks.  My strong hives were doing so well. I did quick checks for eggs to ensure the queens were there and ok. I removed a little burr comb (drone brood which the bees make on the bottom of the frames- it makes a mess). And I accessed for the need to add supers, otherwise I let them bee. 

Mid June we had some really hot days so I let the next inspection go a few extra days. Normally I go in every seven to eight days. This one was planned for day eleven. Before hand, I was sitting outside with my kids eating lunch and I could hear a buzzing sound... I thought there was a hornet's nest close by. I told the kids to get in so I could check it out. As I carried our garbage to the driveway I found the source. There was a swarm forming above my driveway!!! One of my hives was swarming!!

I quickly inspected and found Athena wondering around. Alveare was a small colony, but thankfully still there. Then I went to check the other hives. However, since my other two queens are not marked, I was mostly going in to see if they were missing large amounts of bees or looking for other signs of swarming. Yes, both had bees.  However, Kosnica had made queen cells from the burr comb wax and hid them with the drones on the bottom of the frame. My strongest hive was now queenless. Well, at least for the next three weeks until the new queen *hopefully* starts laying eggs.

I left my hives to go check on the swarm. The swarm settled on a branch about forty feet up in our big oak tree. I set out a lure box with some lemongrass but they had other plans. Within two hours the swarm took off in a cloud and buzzed off over the houses and treetops.  

That buzzing, like a small engine plane was half my hive and my super star queen showing me they had other plans this summer.

Well, that's the buzz, for now...

Blessings!

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DIY Hair Detangler

Oh for years I bought the premade stuff. No more! It is so easy to make it yourself!

Seriously this is so easy it is embarrassing.

Ok ready?

1. Take a spray bottle.
2. Add conditioner.
3. Add water.
4. Shake it up.
5. Spray on hair.

Ok so you want more details?

Here is my exact recipe:

1. using a 4 ounce bottle
2. add about 1 tablespoon of conditioner
3. optional: add essential oils for hair health and to repel bugs (lice!) I use 3 drops of each: lavender, cedarwood, ylang ylang, rosemary and tea tree.
4. shake well and spray directly onto hair

There you go! Now go untangle.

Blessings!

If you enjoyed this post, I’d be very grateful if you’d help it spread by emailing it to a friend, or sharing it on Google+, Twitter or Facebook.