As you can see by the lower picture, the hives have consumed the majority of the pollen patties placed earlier and now  have a large quantity of drone brood.    I did check a few and none are close to emerging which is no surprise, but the fact that they are capped cells means that they will be mature enough for queens grafted now.

This particular hive had a frame marked with the green top bar to indicate that it had a frame specifically to encourage the bees to raise drones.   Since I run all medium frames and drone frames aren’t available in medium, I started attaching a half sheet of Pierco to the frame, letting the bees draw out the other half.  In most cases this results in a half frame of drone brood.   You can make out the dividing line between worker and drone brood near the top of the first picture.

I checked several hives in my two mating yards and while I only saw a single adult drone, most hives had similar amounts of capped drone cells.

So this Monday we finally began grafting our first batch of larvae.   It’s about a week and a half behind schedule.

This has not been a typical year so far.  And unlike last year that was several weeks ahead, this year is the opposite.  The silver maples just started blooming at the very end of March and the last of them finished blooming today. 

This past weekend we were able to inspect most of the hives for the first time of the season.  The good news is that the majority of hives survived the winter and losses were less than what I expected.  (Great news really given the reports of larger losses from some other beekeepers around the country).   The bad news is, given the cool March and late blooms, hives are easily 3 weeks behind in development.   Typically I’d expect to see a good amount of capped drone brood in most hives by the second week of April.  We found only a couple of  the 80 hives checked this past weekend that had drone brood .  We put more pollen patties in the hives to hopefully encourage drone rearing soon.

So why does this matter?  One of the big factor for good queens is having an ample supply of mature drones.   Grafting now to raise queens would be a futile effort and waste of time because there won’t be enough drones when the queens are mature enough to mate.   For early queens we don’t look for drones themselves, but for a good amount of capped drone cells when we graft.  These drones will be old enough to mate when the queens grafted are ready.

In spite of our best efforts, hives will still die over the winter for various reasons.   Sometimes though, a hive will survive in spite of the beekeeper.

Imagine my surprise when I did a quick check of the hives early this March when I noticed 2 hives among the weeds.   Not the brown and blue hive in the foreground of the first picture…. the 2 hives in the background, the second can barely be seen behind the first.

These two poor hives were swarms that landed on small trees or bushes sometime last summer.  They were hived in a single medium and then were promptly forgotten as the weeds grew up around them hiding them from view.  (This could be an argument for better record keeping).  

Surprisingly these two hives (again, in a single medium, with no winter preparation) where quite alive and well.  I have added a supper of honey to each on one of the few days in March warm enough for bees to fly.  As of a few days ago they still looked good and will likely survive in spite of my forgetfulness.  It’s a reminder that bees are still wild creatures and quite capable of living without our help, at least some of the time.

(The second two pictures are the two hives forgotten among the weeds)

So, I pulled out my old unix hat from college days and moved up to a full fledged cloud/vps server.   It’s basically a virtual server running on a portion of a much bigger server.  So far it’s running circles around the old shared hosting in terms of speed, but the nameserver was just switched tonight to point at the new host so we aren’t seeing the traffic yet.

I do have to put in a plug for the new hosting service, togglebox.com.   Their prices were good, but their support has been even better.   Just tonight I contacted them twice and had an answer in minutes.   That’s a faster response than what I’ve gotten from our host at work where we are spending many, many times as much.  The jury is still out, but so far I’m impressed.  Togglebox (or any vpn server) isn’t for everyone as you need to be able to manage linux and setup and install your own web server, etc.   But for those who can and need that level of server, it looks great.

We still have a number of things to fix, in part due to the move from php4 to php5, but that will just take time.  

It will be held from 8:30AM to 4PM Saturday February 16th at the OSU campus in Lima, Ohio.  Cost is $30 and includes the book and membership to NWOBA. 

Last year will filled the room to capacity so space may be limited.   For more information see the NWOBA website.

For other classes and events elsewhere in Ohio see the Ohio State Beekeepers Association website.

The March 21st date is generally not recommended for the beginner or starting a new hive on foundation as it’s typically too cool for the bees to draw comb well (2012 was an unusual exception to this however).   The march date is a great date for those installing bees on drawn comb, particularly if honey and pollen is available from dead outs.

Generally it will be warmer for the April dates making it a better choice for the beginner because it’s easier to install packages when it’s warmer and the bees will draw comb and forage for their own pollen.   It is still necessary to feed a new package.

More details are available here: 2013 Package Bees.

Fluid dynamics was something I didn’t have to deal with as an electrical engineering student in college.  This is probably ok as the average beekeeper doesn’t need to know much more than it makes a sticky mess when you miss the bottle.

However, I did find this high speed video of pouring honey and it’s mathematical explanation pretty interesting.   I’ve been fascinated by the intricate patterns honey makes as you fill jars.   While I’m at a loss as to what the practical applications of understanding the exact physics of pouring honey may be, they have explained three different modes of pouring honey… Viscous, Gravitational and Inertial Regimes.  These have relatively simple explanations and equations.   The forth mode ‘Inertia-Gravitational’ is yet to be described mathematically (and may be the key to obtaining enlightenment, or not) and the best ‘guess’ is described as ’17th-order nonlinear two-point boundary value problem with two free parameters and 19 boundary conditions’.   Or in layman’s terms, ‘really, really complex’.

So until this mathematical problem can be solved, virtual reality beekeeping may have to wait.  It’s still a cool video.

The hive tool is used by nearly every beekeeper.   While it comes in a few styles, the most common version of the hive tool has made an appearance in home improvement stores in recent years.   It’s no real surprise as the hive tool has hundreds of uses and I always have one in my toolbox, even when I’m not working bees.

The standard hive tool makes a great pry bar for removing trim, tiles, etc.   A putty knife, scraper, and much more.  I’ve even used it to plant tomatoes and as a screw driver when I’ve been in a real pinch.  (I’m waiting to see one show up as a murder weapon on Bones or CSI)

I’ve seen them before in Sears (with the crow bars), Home Depot (with the paint scrapers) and most recently at Menards (on the right).  Red Devil makes one as well.  Typically they are more expensive than from a bee supply company by a few dollars.  The one from Menards did include two other small crow bars for $8.  Not a bad deal.  No idea if they are going to sell the hive tool/pry bar separately (but the carry the Red Devil brand for nearly the same price as the set by ToolShop). Note: The left most ‘pry bar’ in the picture is the hive tool.

Fried Bee Pupae, yum!  Ok, so it really doesn’t look that appetizing to me, but in the majority of the United States and other countries we have been taught that insects shouldn’t be found in our food.  Not so in other parts of the world where insects are either a staple or a delicacy.

In many parts of the world insects provide cheap and plentiful source of protein.  They are far more efficient source of protein (in terms of resource required per pound) than beef, pork and other meat usually found on or tables.  Nutritionally bee larvae are equivalent to a good lean stake and supposedly have a nutty taste (I’ll take their word for it).  Adult bees have somewhat less nutritional value than the pupae.

Unfortunately I could not find the news release referenced in the article mentioned above on the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology website (or ACAAI for short), so we can only speculate at the moment.  Increased pollen may mean more resources available to honey bees, particularly protein that is needed to raise new bees.   This may mean larger, more productive hives and less need to feed pollen supplements.  (Sorry, it’s unlikely to produce large chihuahua sized bees, only more populous hives).   There is no mention that there would be any increase in nectar to feed the bees or result in larger honey crops in the article.  The cause of this phenomena listed in the article may have other negative effects on bees as well related to general climate change. In some areas beekeepers have noted certain flowers are producing less honey in recent warmer years than they had in the past.  The only thing I can say for certain is, beekeeping will continue to be a new adventure each season.