Apr 9: Went to get my bee packages from the local bee dealer today. Arrived at opening hour, they had a drive through system organized, very efficient
This is what packages look like up close:
The box is much smaller than I imagined; in the middle it has an aluminum can filled with sugar syrup. Once you pull the can out, the bees are free.
Of course, they aren't going to go far, since their queen is in a little cage in the middle of the cluster:
Couldn't get a better shot; The queen is much smaller than I imagined - but I suppose she might have lost some weight, I don't think she has been eating a lot of royal jelly in her cage. The tube that is plugging the cage has sugar inside; it will take the workers a couple days to eat through it and release the queen. I have put her cage between the frames in the hive.
Right now she is not much larger than a worker, but much faster; workers crawl around at a leisurely pace; The queen is running back and forth very quickly inside her little cage
Since the package is so small, I could fit it all in the space behind the divider board, and let them move into the hive on their own schedule; the gap below the divider is large enough for them to get through it
A closer look:
See how yellow they are? These are Apis Malifera Ligustica. They are not the most resilient honeybee subspecies, but they are loved by beekeepers worldwide for their docile, unaggressive demeanor. Also, they do well in warm climates with mild winters, so they are perfect for California.
Feeding bees that come out of the package is highly recommended, but I have pledged to never feed my bees sugar syrup; They got a pound of honey from local farmers' market instead
This is about twice less than recommended amount, so they better get straight to foraging
I must point out that this is not what reputable sources would recommend. In fact, Lazutin explicitly advises against feeding bees honey that isn't your own, since foulbrood can be transmitted through honey; On the other hand, foulbrood is a rare disease in the modern world, and I know that this honey is of very decent quality.
I put some wax foundation on top to work as a floater, so bees don't drown in it
Once I closed the hives, front entrance came to life in the first 10 minutes, there's a lot of bees coming and going
I'll give them a week before I have a look inside and remove the boxes/queen cages
The package that ended up in the southern hive had a large number of dead bees at the bottom; I hope the colony isn't sick. The bees don't look like there's anything wrong with them, I think they've just spent more time in the box. Anyway, we'll see how they do in a week.
Apr 13: Checked both hives, removed the queen cages
Both colonies are alive; the one in the southern hive is doing great; there's a lot of activity around the entrance, with a lot of foragers coming and going all the time
Inside there is active comb construction going on on 4 frames. Here is a tiny edge of it:
Dark yellow is the wax foundation I provided; but lighter yellow is new construction.
There is more comb built on other frames, but I didn't want to disturb the bees too much.
Bad news is, only 1/4 of the honey I provided was consumed; there is also a layer of drowned worker bees on the surface, looks like 1 pound honey jars don't make good feeders. I have ordered two layens size feeders just in case.
Also, it looks like shaking bees out of the package is the best strategy, even if the whole package fits inside the hive. I have shaken them out in the southern hive (only because I accidentally dropped the queen's cage inside the box and had no other way of retrieving her). It looks like southern hive is doing much better, even though they had to clean up all the dead bees from the floor. In the northern hive, it looks like a large number of bees stayed in a tight cluster inside the package till they died (or they were dead before I installed the package? when I removed the package there was a decent sized cluster of dead bees clinging to the upper wall)
The queens have been freed from their cages; bees already started covering them in comb, it is good that I pulled them out before they were completely encased
Northern hive colony is alive, I see some foragers, and there is comb construction on the first two frames, but nowhere as active as the southern one. Also, no security personnell outside the entrance, and I saw a couple ants crawling around the bottom; I hope the colony will soon pull itself together.
Apr 15: I recieved the feeders yesterday. Decided to give the northern hive some sugar syrup, since they appear to be struggling a little. Southern hive seems to be doing fine, so I think the best I can do is not open the hive an extra time
Today is a sunny day, and I see that the entrance of the northern hive looks much more lively than last time I visited
Of course, not quite as active as the southern hive, even on a cloudy day
A lot of what appears to be younger bees doing their practice flights outside the hive today.
Anyway, here is a quart of high energy food, bees. I hope I can count on you not to drown in it
One thing I noticed - I didn't open the brood area (or are they still building comb? not sure), but it doesn't seem very warm to touch; I thought brood area is supposed to be hot? I hope it isn't some sort of a bad omen
Anyway, i'll leave them be for a week
Apr 16: I finished a DIY bee smoker I've been working on lately
Smoke is extremely useful in pacifying the bees; unfortunately, bee smokers commonly used in beekeeping are a bit of a fire hazard, especially during California summers, when everything is bone dry, and the smallest spark can start a fire
That's where project Bee Vape comes along. This is my prototype vape 100% fire safe vape device:
Made with:
Without the dimmer, the pump is a little too powerful, and blows air at such intense rate you can't really see the smoke; for a more budget version, a regular 9V battery would suffice; also, this way you won't need a dimmer, because the pump will run at reduced power anyway.
Bee vape oil is also easy to make:
No nicotin or cannabis or dubious flavors, just some harmless food grade chemistry.
Can't wait to test it on bees
Also, special thanks to my friend Al and his mad 3d printing skills
Apr 22: Inspected both hives today. We had a rainy week, so I believe the bees haven't done as much foraging as they could have
Both colonies are healthy, but they aren't growing; Southern hive has 4 frames developed, and northen hive only 2; though there is more comb built on the last frame, but looks like the colonies don't yet have the numbers to expand further
I found a phone app that analyzes a frame of bees on a picture and counts varroa mites (called beescanning); On the picture I took on Apr 13 one of the worker bees had a varroa mite on it; now Varroa infestation is at 0%. Looks like these bees indeed have good sanitation habits.
Pictures from Southern Hive:
And from Northern Hive:
I decided against checking deeper frames and examining the brood; trying to keep the disturbance during my inpections to the minimum
Northern hive has consumed all the honey syrup I gave them; There were a few drowned bees at the bottom. Was it too viscous for them? Anyway, I hope it helped a little
Both colonies look healthy, and foraging is very active, but I hope they will start producing new workers ASAP.
Regarding the bee vape device - it is hard to say if the bees react to it; the bees I got are so chill that I have never seen them display any aggressive behavior. But when I try to move the frames together, the vape does make them get out of the way, so for now I'll assume it works
Apr 24: Today I added a new hive at the northern site
I will have a new package of bees on the 30th
Why do I get another bee package? Well, in the first few days the northern colony looked rather lethargic, and I felt that they weren't likely to make it, so I ordered a replacement. Then the Northern hive came back to life, and now it looks like they are on the right track. It would propably have been smarter to forefeit the new package, but I decided to order a new hive for them. I chose to place it in the northern site, since the area is more pristine.
And yes, I made latches for this hive, so the lid opens properly.
Apr 29: Inspected both hives today. Both colonies are doing well. Southern hive has active construction on frame 5. Northern hive has construction on frames 3 and 4.
I went in to check if there is brood; answer is, yes there is brood of different stages. Also, they are sealing the frames with propolis now; today was the first time i needed a hive tool to get inside the hive
Here is a picture of a brood frame from Southern Hive:
As you see, a large patch of capped brood in the middle, and larva around it
All pictures that I've seen had brown capped brood; I wonder if this bright yellow hue has something to do with the bees' diet, or if it is because ligustica are a yellow bee subspecies? Anyway, brood appears healthy. There is more of it on deeper frames that i didn't remove
(looked it up - apparently first generation of brood on a new frame is often yellow; it gets darker brown over time as beeswax gets mixed with debris)
Northern hive: this is a picture of 3rd frame. There is a small patch of capped brood in the middle, and some larva around it.
I saw much more capped brood on frame 2, but decided not to remove it
Now that i know that both queens are healthy and laying, I will try not to get into the brood area during my inspections
The next week is going to be the breaking point, i guess. Here's the issue:
It takes around 21 days for a worker bee to fully develop from an egg laid by a queen; at least 9 days have to be spent in pupa (sealed brood) stage
Once hatched, a worker bee lives 30-55 days
Worker bees that came in a package will start dying of old age soon. There has be enough newly hatched workers to replace them by that time
Newly hatched workers are not strong enough to fly long distance, and therefore forage; Under normal circumstances, only bees that are over 21 days old are involved in foraging
Therefore, the colonies are on a bit of a tight schedule; the new workers need to hatch soon, and there should be enough reserves till there are new foragers
I would say, based on the amount of sealed brood I've seen, they are on the right track, but we'll see. I predict the next few weeks are going to be difficult; but, if a colonies manage to become self sufficient, around 2000 new workers will be hatched every day, and the colony will have enough workers to fill every role
Tomorrow I'm getting a package for my 3rd hive
Apr 30: Got my package from BeeKind today
These are locally adjusted hygenic hybrid; see how brown they are compared to bright yellow Ligustica that I have in the first 2 hives?
Installed the package in the morning; almost no dead bees this time. The ladies are very active
I gave them a full feeder of syrup this time. I am generally against feeding bees sugar, but main honeyflow is starting in 2 weeks, and they need energy to build comb ASAP
I used this syrup: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013H8L4HY
It has good reviews; bad reviews mostly say that the bottle arrived damaged, or something like 'ingredients include corn syrup ewww gmo'. I don't mind a bit of GMO, and neither do my bees. Also, one full feeder is all they are getting, so they better put it to good use
Here they are, exploring their surroundings
Also, I noticed that the bees that I got in packages are really small; the ones in hives seem to have grown over time. Do bees grow as they age, or was it the diet of sugar water that made them shrink? I couldn't find any information on that
May 1: Checked the new hive today. Bees look very alive and settling in; lots of bees coming and going, but they seem to be young bees doing orientation flights, not foraging - I watched the entrance for a while, none of the returning bees are bringing back any pollen. It is probably fine, I think I saw the same behavior with other hives in the very beginning
What concerns me - the hive entrance seems to be covered in bee diarrhea:
I'm afraid this might be a sign that the bees might be infected with nosema
Though Lazutin and de Layens suggested that Nosema is not a big deal, and tends to go away if the hive the bees live in is in order; However, nosema reduces the bee life span; I hope they will live long enough to raise the next generation
Anyway, I'll make sure to clean it up during my Friday inspection, and will monitor the situation. Perhaps the bees just got stressed in their little box, and will recover once they settle into their new home
May 6: Inspected all hives today; All colonies appear to be healthy and active
Hybrid bees in the new colony don't seem to be suffering from diarrhea anymore; whatever ailed them, seems to have been fixed by moving into a nice comfortable hive. I have cleaned the entrance with alcohol
Also, they finished their syrup. I removed the feeder. Also removed the queen's empty cage
Two original colonies seem to keep growing in size; It is hard to count bees, but i see that new frames keep being developed. It makes sense that the colonies have not been claiming new frames in the first 3 weeks - it takes 18-21 days for a worker bee to develop from an egg; colony's expansion must be a sign of new workers being born, which is consistent with the timeline
I think i will keep a table with a history of the number of frames with at least a bit of comb being built
| Date of Inspection |
Southern Hive 1 Ligustica |
Norhtern Hive 1 Ligustica |
Northern Hive 2 Hybrid |
| April 09 2022 | Package Installed | Package Installed | |
| April 14 2022 | 4 | 2 | |
| April 22 2022 | 4 | 2 | |
| April 29 2022 | 5 | 4 | Package Installed |
| May 06 2022 | 6 | 5 | 4 |
| May 13 2022 | 6 | 5 | 5 |
| May 20 2022 | 9 | 9 | 6 |
| May 27 2022 | 9 | 9 | 6 |
| Jun 03 2022 | 11 | 9 | 6 |
| Jun 10 2022 | 13 | 12 | 7 |
| Jun 17 2022 | 20 | 12 | 7 |
May 13: Checked all hives. All colonies do well
No expansion to new frames in the original Ligustica hives; I believe they are going through the anticipated population drop, with package bees dying off. However, foraging is very active, and brood is warm. I believe they are dealing with it well, and I expect colony growth to resume soon
Made a deeper inspection of the new hybrid hive. They started active construction on frame 5. Frame 4 has comb fully built, but no brood. Plenty of nectar and pollen though. Frame 3 has plenty of larva and a few capped brood cells (consistent with the colony's age - the package has been installed only 2 weeks ago, so they haven't had the time to make a lot of capped brood yet); Now i know the queen is healthy and laying, and I will be less invasive during next inspections
I'm sure there is more brood on frames 1 and 2, but i decided not to remove them
Active foraging in all hives, with bees bringing back pollen nonstop
May 15: I went to the northern site to check the bees. Not that they actually needed checking, but i wanted to read a book somewhere quiet, and thought it would be nice to watch the bees come and go. Bees seem to be doing fine, but I discovered something disturbing - apparently, there are several Aesculus californica (California Buckeye) trees right next to the site.
These flowers' pollen is toxic to honeybees, leading to malformed larva and several reproductive failures, and might even cause colony collapse.
As long as they are not the main source of pollen, things will probably be fine, but I'm afraid these flowers must look very attractive to bees, and also very abundant.
Or, maybe, the locally adapted bees will know to stay away, or have developed some sort of resistance? Fingers crossed.
It feels like there's a lot of these plants in the area; However, there are a lso wild bees, so perhaps there are not enough of them to kill colonies; A lot of plants are blooming at this time, thought not as spectacularly as the buckeye. I hope the forage is diverse enough for the buckeye pollen to not be a huge problem
May 16: Read a little more on the issue; learned 2 things:
- Buckeye poisoning is more likely to occur during dry years, when buckeye is the only source of pollen at the time it blooms; we had some rains in May, so it isn't as dry as it could have been; there's a lot of blooming plants around. So perhaps this isn't a worst case scenario
- Bees that have been around buckeye seem to be able to learn it is poisonous; They tend to cap the pollen cells filled with toxic pollen; At the very least, it would help them next year, which might end up being dryer; Also, the bees come from other parts of Sonoma county, where buckeye trees are common. They might already have the skill of dealing with it
Anyway, all I can do at this point is monitor colony health. I only wish I placed the last hive at the southern site, that doesn't have toxic Buckeye growing in the foraging radius. I will keep a close eye on things in the next month
Worth noting that bee vendors in the area do not list Buckeye trees as a serious threat; perhaps locally adjusted bee stock has indeed overcome this problem
May 18: I have reached out to the vendors I got bees from, hoping to hear their opinions on the dangers of Aesculus californica and its pollen
I have not heard back from April Lance; It appears that they do not check emails outside of bee selling season
But I did hear back from Douglas Vincent, owner of BeeKind:
The pollen of California buckeye is toxic to honeybee larva. In our area the blackberry blooms around the same time, and the bees prefer blackberry blossoms. I have watched bees working blackberries that were growing up and through buckeye trees, ignoring the buckeye blossoms. It is my opinion that if blackberry blooms first, California buckeye is not a problem, but if the blackberries are late and buckeye blooms first, the bees will suffer a population setback for about 6 weeks, until they use up the pollen
Blackberry started blooming a couple weeks earlier than buckeye this year, and has a lot of flowers at this moment; I was concerned that Buckeye trees have a lot more flowers than blackberry bushes, but if bees prefer blackberry, I think everything will be good, at least this year
May 20: All hives are doing well; Ligustica hives have construction on the 9th frame, which was the last frame before the dividing board, so i added a couple frames into each
Hybrid hive has started construction on 6th frame; frames 4 and 5 are full of nectar and pollen, and I even see some capped honey. I also saw a lot of capped brood on frame 3. The new generation of bees should begin hatching around this time
Southern hive has a lot of comb built, but at least the last 3 frames of comb are completely empty; northern hives seem to have a larger amount of nectar and pollen. Apparently the forest has better forage, at least in the beginning of the honeyflow. The southern hive might do better in late summer
May 27: Checked all hives; all bees are doing well
No new frames are being developed since last week, but the bees have done some work on frames they started earlier
Southern hive bees are champions of comb construction, but they don't seem to have that much honey reserves; perhaps forage in the area is not very plentiful
The northern hives, however, have done very well building up their reserves; i feel that i will get a good harvest from them in Autumn
Hybrid bees are not very plentiful, but they had a later start, so they must still be building up their numbers. I saw a lot of capped brood today, so they should be doing fine
There are no signs of buckeye poisioning at the moment
I haven't posted pictures in a while, so here are some:
Comb builders. As you see, some of the newly built comb is already being filled with nectar
A frame of nectar. See how comb alternates between white and yellow? bees must have been foraging different plants during different phases of construction
Another frame with nectar and honey:
What's the difference between nectar and honey? Nectar is the nutrient sugar rich liquid that bees forage from plants; workers do a little bit of chemical engineering using enzymes, and store it in comb; but at that stage it contains too much water, and does not store very well. Bees then wait for it to get dehydrated enough for it to be safe to store long term, and cap it with wax, as you see in the upper right corner. White capped cells contain real proper honey
A frame of brood, with some honey on top. These will be their winter reserves:
Another brood frame, with a couple young bees hatching:
They were very actively chewing the wax caps. These ladies can't wait to get to work!
Jun 03: Examined all hives. Bees appear healthy
I noticed that some of the unused wax foundations, even the ones beyond the divider board, appear to be slightly chewed. Did the colonies need extra ventilation? Or just reused the wax elsewhere?
Southern Ligustica: Initial construction on frame 11. Empty comb on frames 10 and 9. Brood and nectar on frame 8. Looks like they really focus on reproducing, and not too much on building honey reserves this time
Northern Ligustica: Partially built comb on frame 9, filled with nectar. Frame 8 very heavy and filled with nectar, some capped honey. Capped brood and larva on frame 7, capped honey on top
This hive was a little defensive; threw a tantrum when i tried to move bees out of the way while putting frames back together. Got stung once, first time after the bees settled into hives (before that got stung while handling packages uncarefully)
Northern Hybrid: Frame 6 still under construction. Didn't look deeper
I know all hives are healthy, I don't think I have a good reason to look past the last frame with comb construction till harvest
Also, one of the drinking stations on the northern site has been tipped over. Not sure if it was the wind, or maybe a deer tried to drink from it. I see a lot of deers around. Put some rocks around the foundation, should help with wind, but not the deers
I must say, the thing I like most about the bees is how they smell. A healthy bee colony smells like beeswax and flowers. Very sophisticated
Jun 04: Saw that Toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia) started to bloom. A little early, I believe it wasn't due till July. The bees are having a blast
I saw this during a hike about 15 miles from the northern site, so none of these bees are mine. But it is absolutely everywhere, so at least the northern hives are about to get a huge haul from it
Jun 12: We are having a bit of a heat wave, and the bees are really enjoying the hot weather. All colonies are doing well, especially the two older ones. Just look at all this activity:
(14 second video with sound here. This is the northern Ligustica colony)
I got stung 3 times this weekend. Looks like now bees really have some honey reserves worth stealing, so they are getting more defensive
Also, as the weather got hot, the drinking stations got really popular.
Old ligustica hives have built a lot of comb this week, so I removed divider boards and let them use all the space. There were plenty of bees behind divider boards anyway. The newer hybrid hive falls a little behind, but overall seems healthy
Jun 17: Performed a light inspection, minimal invasiveness
Southern Ligustica bees are already building comb on the last (20th) frame. So far they have been champions of comb construction, but most of that comb was empty. Let's see how much honey they have by Autumn. I see their foragers are bringing in a lot of pollen, not sure what started blooming in the area, but they seem to love it (I suspect it's fenhel)
Northern Ligustica are still working on frame 12, but i see they are filling it with nectar as soon as it gets built
Northern Hybrid are still working on frame 7
The day was windy, so there was much less activity by the hive entrances. The foragers are still coming and going, but the young bees are not doing practice flights
Jun 24: Visited all sites today, but did not open hives. Foraging activity looks good, I believe at this point i trust my bees enough not to disturb them an extra time
Made sure all drinking stations are full; also deployed new yellowjacket traps. I see some yellowjacket wasps in the area, but they seem to hang out with the bees in a friendly way, usually at the drinking stations; but I do believe they would start hunting the bees once their population grows past some level, so I want to make sure it doesn't happen
Jul 01: Inspected all 3 hives (didn't go too deep though)
Southern Ligustica: A lot of bees; some wax comb built on all 20 frames; Decent nectar reserves on frames 14 and 13
Northern Ligustica: Frames 11 and 12 heavy with capped honey and nectar; very little comb built after that. Lower parts of frames 11 and 12 slightly deformed, might need honey press to extract
Northern hybrid: not doing too well; some capped honey and nectar on frame 7, but very little. Frame 6 has a lot of capped brood, and some capped honey above it
It looks like the northern hybrid colony is not doing too well in terms of honey production; population is also much lower than in the two Ligustica colonies. It looks like i might not be able to get any honey out of it this year, but maybe the colony will survive winter and do better next year. I wonder what the problem might be - is it buckeye poisoning? or perhaps the issues are due to a late start? or some other ailment? We'll see
Jul 08: Inspected all hives. Pretty much the same - Southern hive is being the most productive, a bit of nectar on frame 15 now (not much); What i especially like about the Southern hive is how straight their comb is - those ladies are real perfectionists when it comes to comb architecture
Northern Ligustica hive is not very far behind, but a lot of comb is a little crooked. Still, the colony is doing well. The hybrid colony is building a bit of nectar reserves on frame 7, but I don't think i'll harvest any honey from it
Toyon is done blooming now, and blackberry only has very occasional flowers here and there. Bees are mostly busy harvesting yellow star thistle that seems to grow everywhere (couldn't get a good picture of a bee on a flower, they move too fast)
But here is a picture of a half filled honey frame from Northern Ligustica hive. A full Layens frame should have around 8 pounds of honey. By the weight of this one, it should have around 5
Jul 15: Inspected all hives; all are doing well, southern Ligustica especially well; i see at least a little bit of nectar and pollen on all frames; frames 14 and 15 really heavy with nectar, and frame 13 having capped honey
It looks like the southern hive is enjoying a much better environment; In the woods Toyon and Blackberry are done blooming, so the honeyflow is probably coming to an end. Bees are still foraging, but it doesn't seem as abundant as a month ago. In the south there's a lot of small farms growing all kind of plants, many of them are blooming now, so the bees are still enjoying a bountiful forage
Southern hybrid hive is making a little bit of progress, I see new comb construction and a bit of nectar on frames 8 and 9 now, but I'm not sure I'll be able to get any honey out of it
Jul 17: I complained earlier that the comb in hives at the northern site is a little crooked; now i understand why
The most recent HorizontalHive newsletter has been explaining most frequent reasonsfor comb collapse. I haven't had a comb collapse yet, but the deformed comb and foundations look exactly like the pictures of effects of hives overheating
It also explains why comb at the southern hive is perfectly straight - there the hive is right under a large oak tree, offering good shade. The colony is also doing better, i thought it might have been due to better forage, but now I believe shade has also been a factor.
At the northern site, there are trees that provide shade for the most part of the afternoon, but there is nothing right above them, so the hives are in direct sunlight around noon
And we haven't had any really hot days this year yet - there have been a lot of days with temperature in the 80s F, but there haven't been a single day when it reached 100F. We had a lot of days with temperature reaching 105 last year, so i think things are going to get hotter in August
So, as a solution, i made shady roofs for the northern hive
I know they are comically long, but the nearest hardware store only sells 6 ft roof metal sheets
Anyway, I hope the bees will appreciate their hives being a little cooler
Also, took a picture of a bee on a star thistle:
Maybe not the best angle, but the bees move too fast
There's a lot of star thistle growing absolutely everywhere around the northern site, so the bees are hard at work
Jul 22: Visited both sites
Southern site is doing great. Made a little video for you
Full 15 second video with sound here
Bees at the northern site are not doing that well; While it doesn't look like either of the colonies are at the risk of collapse, they are not nearly as busy as their southern counterparts
The hybrid hive has never been very strong; The northern Ligustica hive has been very strong in mid June, but its population seems to have gone down. I suspect the bees have suffered from buckeye poisoning; I got into the Hybrid hive, saw a lot of capped brood, but not too much larva; but I didn't get all the way into the brood area. Then I got stung in the face (a bee got tangled in my beard, panicked, and decided to sting). Decided not to inspect the Ligustica hive. There are foragers coming and going, a lot of them are bringing pollen, and the colony smells healthy, so things shouldn't be too bad.
Aug 5: Another Friday, another hive inspection
According to local sources, this is the time when the main honeyflow is coming to an end; That is certainly true on the Northern site; Bees are still harvesting nectar from the star thistle, but there's less of it; soon it will be too dry, and nothing will be blooming; I feel that the bees must be preparing for the dearth, their numbers have not really increased since the suspected buckeye poisoning
The Southern site, on the other hand, is booming; there's even more bees in the hive than last week; there's plenty of stuff blooming, on the nearby patch bees seem to favor bergamot and lavander, but there's other stuff as well; Also, it is close to the residential part of southern Santa Rosa, and I know a lot of people have Crepe Myrtles in front of their houses, which are actively blooming right now
I made a video of the hive entrance; if you thought there was a lot of activity 2 weeks ago, look at what is happening now
Full video here
As I mentioned earlier, this hive has a smaller top entrance than it should; some bees march to the side entrance when they think the line is too long
Also, here are pictures of bees on farm plants
From left to right: Bergamot, Sunflower, Lavander, Hollyhock
Aug 12: If there's one thing I know about women, it's that they love sunflowers
Other than that, no changes
Aug 15: Bad news. During inspection, found 2 small hive beetles in one of the hives (Northern Hybrid, my weakest colony at the moment)
Didn't take pictures, chopped them both up with a hive tool as quickly as I could
SHB is not the end of the world; In some areas they are considered unavoidable, and as long as the colony is overall healthy the beetles won't cause a collapse. Yet, they are a real setback, and I'd rather not have to deal with them
I've done some research, and decided to get some Heterorhabditis Indica nematodes to introduce into the soil; that won't do anything to the beetles already inside the hive, but their larva needs to leave the hive and burrow into the soil to pupate; Now that won't happen, since they will be eaten alive by microscopic ringworms
Also, I removed 10 frames with no comb construction from Northern Hybrid hive. This way the bees will have less territory to patrol. I was thinking about also removing some frames from Northern Ligustica colony, but there were so many bees on all frames I thought the bees had it under control
I've also messaged several established apiaries in the area, including Douglas Vincent from BeeKind; Like the last time, Douglas was the only one to respond (for now). His response was that small hive beetles are an issue in Napa, but not so much in Sonoma - something about the soil is inhospitable to them here (Douglas speculates that the soil here must be too dry, but Napa is just as dry as far as I know, but anyway). He does see a few every year, but they don't seem to reproduce, and he has done nothing to fight them. That's good, though my Northern site is in the hills on the way to Napa (still on the Sonoma side), so the hives might be in a bit of a risk zone. Anyway, I'll do everything to make sure that the contamination vector doesn't go past my hives.
Aug 18: Applied nematodes to soil around all hives this evening. Hopefully it wasn't necessary, but I'll sleep much better now
Also, i had a peek inside each hive, without removing the frames. No hive beetles on top of frames or under the lid.
Aug 24: I've been thinking a little about small hive beetle traps; they cost pennies online, but they are only good for Langstroth hives, where they are designed to fit between frames. There seem to be none available for Layens hives
So I thought I had to make some myself
I found some little tin boxes here https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08L8YWF6H
Made some holes in them with a 6 mm chisel:
This Friday I'm going to fill them with apple cider vinegar and canola oil and leave them in hives;if there are adult small hive beetles in any of them, i hope the traps will get them
Aug 26: Checked all hives, everything seems in order. Activity dropping across the board; Bees must know dearth is coming. The hive on a farm is still pretty active, but not nearly as active as a month ago
Checked for small hive beetles, none found. Placed traps filled with apple cider vinegar and canola oil in all hives, let's see if any crawl in
Sep 02: Checked the traps; No hive beetles confirmed. Those edges are sharp, cut my fingers a bit while handling the traps. Good thing I had some napkins and desinfectant with me
Sep 09: All good, activity slowing down, but foraging still going on, bees bringing back pollen. I noticed some ants in the southern hive. Not a lot, but I don't want them there; bought some AntCant, lubricated hive stand legs
Sep 16: All good. No more ants. Also, there were some occasional field cockroach nymphs (considered harmless, don't do any damage or harass the bees) camping under the lid; they seem to be gone too. Huge success.
Small update: small insects i thought were field cockroach nymphs - after some research I believe they are in fact Luridiblatta trivittata. They are tiny insects in the Blattodea family, closely related to cockroaches. Mostly eat mulch and decomposing grass, especially on cultivated land. Considered harmless, probably attracted to warmth and humidity of the hives.
Earlier I thought they were Blattella vaga nymphs, but it puzzled me that I never saw an adult field cockroach around; my guess was that adult cockroaches were quickly chased out of the hive by the bees, but nymphs avoided eviction by hiding in small crevices; but now I understand these tiny insects just don't grow any larger
Oct 09: All is good, bees are still foraging
We are supposed to be in the middle of dearth, but it isn't completely barren; In residential areas a lot of decorative plants are blooming, such as strawberry trees (Arbutus unedo) and bradford pear (Pyrus calleryana); in the forest there's plenty of wild asteraceae, such as various tarweeds and milkweeds. Looks like there'll be some stuff to forage till the first frost, which we will probably have in November
Yellowjacket wasps do not seem to be attacking any of the hives, but I saw them attack a bee out in the field; They must be getting more agressive as winter is approaching. I'll need to place a few more yellowjacket traps at each spot
Oct 11: I put a couple new yellowjacket traps at each site, just in case
Took a video of what's going on at the southern hive, just so you can see how much things have slowed down compared to August
Oct 13: pictures of bees on rosemary, mint, strawberry tree
Oct 15: Here's a picture of a wild honeybee on a coyote bush (Baccharis pilularis) i took during a hike in Mendocino today
There were so many bees working on the bush you could hear the buzz from 20 feet away. Probably because flowering plants are very rare in the area this month
Oct 28: Bad news. I missed the inspection last week due to being out of town. Today i discovered that the Northern Hybrid colony has suffered a varroa induced collapse
The April Lance ligustica colonies are doing ok, but the northern one's chances of successfully overwintering are now significantly lowered, since they almost certainly participated in looting their neighbors' failing colony, and must have picked up a lot of mites in the process. But maybe they'll survive
In addition to that, I see that the 2 surviving hives are being harassed by ants; I've generously sprayed the legs with AntCant, especially along the edges, and placed some borax traps next to the hives. I hope it would be enough
Nov 4: I tried identifying the ants harassing my hives; I couldn't get a good picture, but based on my research the soutern hive was under attack by Pharaoh ants (Monomorium pharaonis), and northern hive by Argentine Ants (Linepithema humile). Both species are invasive in California
With excessive use of AntCant, diatomaceous earth, and Borax ant traps, the invaders have been repelled; i see some ants on the ground, but none manage to get to the hives. Also, it's getting colder, so hopefully ants will go into winter mode soon
Southern colony appears to be very strong; northern colony not so much; i wish that they were entering winter with more bees. I'll be rather surprised if they survive
I managed to pull some honey from both hives. The bees are now in winter mode, and the best thing i can do for them is leave them alone till the first warm day of February