Alaska Bee Keeping

[yukonjeff]

After the realization last night that they were starving, I went up the hill and sprayed the cluster with sugar water from the plastic feed jar and closed it back up till this morning.

I first went into my strong hive to get a frame of honey/nectar for the starving nuc but not a spare frame to be found, they ate up the extra during the cool snap and apparently they are just getting by. It amazes me because I literally walk through a blooming flower garden to get to them and its like that everywhere here.

So I put feed jars on all three hives, and will feed till the fireweed bloom here in about a week and then they should be good and making honey.

The nuc would not break cluster and many starved, its warmer now, the queen was ok and still had a couple frames of brood, I hope she didn't quit laying, they had a feed jar the whole time. I put a few more holes and sprayed them down with it again and they revived and are back to normal, danger averted for now. \

 Still a decent few frames left so I caught it in time.



I cleaned the bottom board and got a plate of dead bees and sprayed them with sugar water and many came back to life after setting in the sun.





Will monitor closely and spray them again with sugar if they quit flying in and out during bad weather.

[apisbees]

Spraying can be dangerous for the bees it they do not have time to warm up before night and the temp drops again. In Dec or Jan  I  have taken nucs and put them in a dark place in the bassment the bassment is about 62 degrees and i use a red light so i can see but it doesn't  excite the bees. It is warm enough for the bees to take feed and they do not cluster to tightly to keep the brood nest at 95 degdegree. Keep in mind that the bees will not move off the brood to get to the honey. If it got cool enought for the bees to get latharget and chilled, there is a good chance that the brood will have also been chilled and the bees will be cleaning out chilled brood.

[yukonjeff]

Thanks apisbees. Yes I did realize that getting them wet was not good ,but the alternative was they were falling over dead from starvation so it was a last ditch effort to save them, and I got lucky and it seemed to work out this time anyway.

The brood are ok so far, they afre not hauling any out, so that's good. Hope it don't do that again because there are not a lot of bees left.

[Barbarian]

If the feed is via a central hole in the inner cover/crown board the bees may not move away from the brood during cold weather.
Position the brood frames below the hole and put a follower/dummy board at each end of the bunch of frames.
Provided there is enough space on the frames it is unlikely that the bees will build wild comb outside the boards.
As a "belt and braces" tactic you could fill the space outside the boards with insulation board or loose hessian sacking.

[Lburou]

Jeff, it just occurred to me that your new package could have had that many 'old' or winter bees in it.  Winter bees don't last long in spring.  Just a possibility...that would mean you haven't done anything to kill them. 

[yukonjeff]

 Thanks Barbarian I think you are right. In the cooler weather they would not leave the brood to get the feed right above them. It is a feed jar through a inner cover hole. I do warm the syrup every day in cool weather, but forgot about doing that when the weather got cool again since its summer. I will monitor closely now.

Lburou, this was my new split not a package. My new queen made it in from the east coast, four days again on second day air. It was cool again like 45 degrees F. with a cool breeze.

I warmed the hive in the house and used a spray bottle to add a honey band of sugar syrup to a partial drawn frame, and added three frames of brood from the same hive again, That hive  is cranking out brood frames, I hope I don't tax her too much.



Well the transfer was not that fun the bees were mad since it was cold and cloudy and were all up in my face while I looked for the queen to make sure I don't grab her. I didn't find her so have to make double sure I don't have her in the split before I release the caged queen.

Hopefully it will warm up again into the 60s today and my bees will be happy campers again.

[Lburou]

...Lee, this was my new split not a package...

Doh!        I guess I should practice my reading skills, eh Jeff?   

[yukonjeff]

In a moment of wishful thinking, I thought/hoped the same thing until I remembered it was the split.

[yukonjeff]

I live right on the beach of the Yukon river and I walked down the other day and heard a lot of buzzing in the grass, and was amazed at the amount of bees that were there apparently sucking something out between the blades of grass. Paying no attention to the flowers that were also growing there. there was so many I started looking for a swarm.

 This is a bog grass that grows on wet swampy areas.





Here is a random weird flower unknown to me.



This is the first Fireweed blooming here now. What we have been waiting for, its our main flow. They grow everywhere here. They bloom starting from the bottom up, and they say here in Alaska, the summer is over when they reach the top around late August.

I bought some fireweed honey last fall from a Alaskan Bee keep (after my first summer beekeeping failure) it was the best honey I ever had $30 a pint I paid, and was worth every penny.

[yukonjeff]

 Me and a buddy walked to my hives about ten feet away and we started to get bumped. We just had street jackets with hoods up, no gear on so I suggested we start walking down the hill and take a few steps and my buddy starts freaking out that a bee is in his hood. He falls over and I pull his hood off and see no bee.

I said its gone and he said no its IN MY EAR !! and sure enough I saw back legs in his ear canal and very much alive going up in deeper disappearing !!! ...and then I would see the back legs again.

I grabbed a alder twig and was lucky it had kind of a hooked end, I held his head and watched for the back legs again and stuck it in and hooked the bee and pulled it out and it stung him outside the ear on the cartilage ,didn't get the stinger in all the way but drew blood.

Was really a bad deal. he is not a bee keep but has been assisting me ,and took it pretty good. he said when he fell down it was because the bee in his ear messed with his equilibrium and he lost his balance.

Good thing it didn't sting inside the ear, we had a good laugh after words but wow... didn't see that coming.

I wonder if anyone else had this happen or even worse inhale one.

[riverbee]

wow, bee IN the ear canal...............!!!!
geez, just reading about your description i am thinking how far will a bee go into the ear canal before she decides to back out? or not?
i think i might have panicked a little on that one!

i have never been stung in the ear, but have been stung outside on the cartilage, and it smarts. 

thanks for sharing the story yukonjeff!

[yukonjeff]

Yes it sure was crazy, and a bee fits perfect in the ear BTW

I am getting head nets for any guest that want to see the hives from now on. and considering wearing my bee jacket more often on cloudy days.

[yukonjeff]

Well we have some steady warm weather coming in the next few days it should stay in the 50-65 F  so I decided to  do a full treatment with MAQS pre-flow and get it out of the way since we might have a rainy ,cool, summer here at any time.
(God save the Queen)

My two NUCs are getting robbed by the bigger hives so I had to whip up a couple of robbing screens fast.

I am what you might call a Red Green Bee keeper, so this was my first prototype.  I made it from a bee package.



This is a better version, aluminum hardware cloth, and bee package wood, held on with push pins.



The vultures were hanging out eating my  bees. We have a lot of these around here. Big as your hand, and take down YJ,s and  bumble bee's too.



Bees are still working these.

[Bakersdozen]

OMG!  Jeff, I just read the story about the bee trying to enter your friends ear canal. You need ear muffs to work your bees!
I was curious about what your bees are working.  You said they were thick "between the blades of grass".  Were they on the actual grass blades or were they on the ground.  If on the ground in a boggy area, they were probably getting nutrients from the soil as well as moisture.
The last picture you posted looks a little like queen anne's lace.  It might be wild carrots or something.  It probably isn't.  Honey bees don't work queen anne's lace.  I am familiar with fireweed.  It's just beautiful.
Thanks for the pictures.

[yukonjeff]

B.D. The bee in the ear episode was a good one  I have head nets coming for any guest from now on.

And yes they were sucking something out of between the blades of  beach grass, I think you might be right. The ground there is wet and rusty water looking so they must be getting some minerals from it, but I was amazed at the amount of bees on it, and after checking again the other day they are not on it anymore.

The plants they are on now is Cow Parsnip.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracleum_maximum

They are everywhere here. This is the front yard. They seam to gather both pollen and nectar.





We also have a lot of poison Hemlock that grows right in amongst the CP. I going to watch this year and see if any bees are on those white poison flowers that look almost exactly like Cow Parsnips.

[riverbee]

"I am what you might call a Red Green Bee keeper"

...............

jeff, i have used that metal tape for a variety of things it works pretty good!

thanks for the pix! 
parsnip, we have a wild variety here, very invasive, it is yellow, worst i have seen it in our river valley (agricultural area). we have planted areas for native species (restoration) and this stuff is really encroaching or growing into the fields we planted and is of no value to my honeybees.

[yukonjeff]

Thanks Riverbee, I have several rolls of the foil tape and its very handy stuff !

What a difference week can make. Today I took out the MAQS strips I put on a week ago just at the start of the Fireweed bloom, and the instructions said to put on a super for them to expand into if the vapor gets bad, so I did put on an undrawn super, and low and behold they had it half drawn and filled ! So I put another deep on under the medium on both the strong hives.

The two Nucs had been starved and robbed, it set them back a bit, but they are both a few frames of bees and doing good again. I even was able to remove the robber screens because we have peace and harmony in the bee yard again.

[efmesch]

yukonjeff: The two Nucs had been starved and robbed, it set them back a bit, but they are both a few frames of bees and doing good again. I even was able to remove the robber screens because we have peace and harmony in the bee yard again.

efmesch:As a general rule of thumb, robbing takes place only when flowering is inadequate.  Once the honey flow gets going in earnest, bees will prefer to get their nectar from the flowers and forget about such dangerous things as robbing.  You did wisely by removing the robbing screens.  Coming and going is easier for the hive's bees and they can make more trips back and forth in a given amount of time.  Of course, having 20+ hours of daylight during which they can collect, is an advantage we southerners can't compete with.
Keep those great pictures coming.

[Perry]

Million dollar views!

[yukonjeff]

Thanks for your insight guys, much appreciated.

I also wanted to show you all a drone I picked up off the flight deck the day after I installed the MAQS. He looks blind ? Could it have been from the treatment? Sure is nasty stuff.