Hive one disaster

On my weekly hive inspection, I saw several hundred (possibly 1000+) dead bees in and around. The colony was small to start-- only three weeks into After a combination of asking around and my own research, I concluded that the deaths were caused by one of the following:

1. Cold weather. The five days before the deaths suffered abnormally cold weather. I didn't inspect the interior or exterior of the hive during this time. Local beeks tell me that a few hundred deaths due to cold weather is common.
2. Pesticides. The big bad word. At first I thought this to be the strongest case, but then I found that this is not the time of year for spraying. Maybe the garden center's plant vendors spray the plants before they ship them. I have yet to ask them.
3. Epic bee battle. One person suggested this-- not as a joke. If one hive tried to rob another hive, there would be blood. http://youtu.be/tnOGMSKGfWw

When I checked the hive, albeit small in number, they were working happily with their original queen. Plenty of worker brood ensure that they will return to full strength in the coming months if there are no more disasters.

Second inspection, second and third hive installation

I decided on a whim to buy two additional packages of bees. Originally, I had ordered one package and one nuc. The additional packages both came from Tom Johnson. The second and third hive installation went smoothly. Set up the hive, uncork the candy end of the queen cage, place her in between the center frames, dump the bees in. Package installation would be a very monotonous task if you had a day's worth of packages to install. The first hive has a good three or four frames full of worker brood. I initially had trouble telling the difference between worker brood and drone brood. Beeks say that capped drone brood looks like cap-colored Cocoa Puffs. But, worker brood looks like a flatter version of drone brood. What about the ones that look like they're in between? To a newbeek, you really have to see both on the same frame to develop an eye for it. For now, look at this sample image I found somewhere: http://i.imgur.com/tmI83.jpg All in all, the first hive looked okay. I expected to see more capped honey after two weeks, but I suppose they're still ramping up. I'll check on hives two and three again in a week, weather permitting.

First hive inspection

Sorry, no pictures.. I didn't have an assistant this time around. I watched the bees fly in and out a bit before I opened up the hive. There were a bunch of workers flying in and out, and their legs were full of yellow and orange pollen. All in all, they seemed lively and abuzz with excitement. Ba dum. Upon opening the hive, I first checked that the queen cage was empty. It was, though there were a few stray workers checking the place out still. I removed the cage, and then the frame for a quick inspection. I didn't look for the queen or new brood-- a mistake on my part-- because the excess comb the workers had built in the space between the center frames distracted me. They apparently didn't like the excess space that the queen cage put between the center frames. I would have removed the cage earlier, but it's been close to freezing the past few days. I removed the 3-4 square inches of comb (a layer on top of the frame layer, between which there was space for bees to walk). I uncapped a few honey stores in the process, but it couldn't be helped. I restored the intended spacing of the frames in this way. Looking in between the frames, the workers appear to have built out between two and four frames of comb. Not knowing how much brood the queen has laid, I can't accurately gauge the colony's health. Also, they don't seem all that interested in the syrup right now. Does that mean they have better nectar sources? They do live next door to a garden center! Or, do they get freaked out by having to eat syrup with their dead buddies floating around in it?Some helpful beeks on local message boards tell me that they're ignoring the syrup probably because they found a better nectar source. Assuming that's the case, I plan on removing their top feeder on my next inspection.

Spar Urethane

I'm installing two more hives tomorrow-- that'll be another post. For these hives, instead of paint, I coated them with spar urethane, meant for coating outdoors wood. It's resistant to sun Specifically, I used Minwax's satin spray spar urethane.

I don't know whether or not this will have a negative effect on the bees. We'll see. But the spar urethane (especially the spray) seems a lot simpler than painting. Plus, I like the natural look of the wood supers.

Just add bees

Earlier this week, April 2nd, I installed a package of bees into my first hive. The package came from local beekeeper, Lee Miller. He drove them up from Georgia. That's not Lee Miller in the picture.



The weather was pretty bee-neutral that day, so I put the package in my trunk and drove them to my apiary. I brought with me a wealth of supplies, including jacket with veil, gloves, sugar syrup, spray bottle, hammer, nails, smoker, cotton smoker fuel, hive tool, and matches. The gloves I'm using are handy in that they're cheap, disposable, and puncture resistant: nitrile gloves.

At the apiary, I filled the spray bottle, and sprayed the bees while they were still in the package. I've read that you really can't spray them too much. I've also seen videos where the keepers spray their bees incessantly. The sugar syrup weighs the bees down and clumps them together, but it also keeps them occupied while I'm pouring them into the hive. I didn't end up using the smoker. There's really no need with package bees. They're so docile.



My queen came in a standard cage, but with a plastic strap attached. Luckily, I prepared... I brought a hammer and some very small nails. I was able to put a nail into the top of one of my frames, put a slit into the plastic strap attached to the queen cage, and then hang the queen cage between two frames from the nail. Remember, though, to angle your queen cage so the mesh does not face the frame foundation. You want your workers to have access to the queen.



Finally, I added a top feeder to the hive and filled it with a bunch of 1:1 sugar syrup. The bees love it, but I'm told that looters will sometimes go into underneath the cover and into the top of the feeder to drown. Also, if any gaps form in mesh cove that keeps the hive bees from drowning, they will venture out into the ocean of syrup and drown. More discussion on feeders here: Burgh Bees: Which Feeder Do You Use?

Next time I check in will be in about a week when I ensure that the queen has left her cage and has started to lay eggs.

Hive installation

I installed the first hive in my rooftop apiary. Just the one medium super, a feeder box, and the cover looks minuscule on the large, flat roof. It consists of a base board, Varroa screen, 8-frame medium super, top feeder, inner cover, and top cover. These rest on a pallet that sits on top of a stress mat (to protect the rubber roof). As soon as the nuc I purchased is ready, there'll be a second, slightly larger hive close by. Still, I wish I had bought supplies enough for a third or fourth hive. Is that too ambitious?



Tomorrow, I pick up a package of bees from Lee Miller in Freedom, PA. My original seller, Kopar Honey Farm, fell through on most of their package orders. I recruited a friend for the trip. How am I supposed to hold the bees in the one hour car ride? Can I put them in the trunk? Probably?

The rooftop is located in beautiful Upper Lawrenceville, little further than 10 blocks from Arsenal Cider House. I'm told city bees do better than country bees for a variety of reasons. For one, there's a lack of industrial pesticides... despite Bayer's insistence that the prevailing studies were poorly performed. Second, cities house a density of bio-diverse nectar-producing plants in the form of local gardens and local invasive species such as Japanese Knotweed (Fallopia japonica, Polygonum cuspidatum, Reynoutria japonica). Third, water sources abound-- puddles, bird feeders, and rubber roofs dot the city and provide nearby resource fountains for the colony.



Rooftops usually receive a fair bit of wind, especially right on the Allegheny River. In addition to my base setup, I secured the hive to the wooden pallet with a ratcheting tie-down. As an obsessive-compulsive measure, I placed a large brick on top of it all. Barring lightning, I think I'm good.

Construction lessons

Despite my previous comment about the budget supers, after putting them together, they are noticeably lower quality. Possibly even the commercial supers are problematic, but again, it's tough to tell them apart.

The most troublesome defect is that some boards are shorter than others. When I assemble a super with one of these boards, the resulting super doesn't rest evenly on a flat surface. If you place that super on top of another, there's a gap between the two supers. Will the bees fill this up? The gap is usually not more than 0.25". I tried chiseling/sanding down some of the bigger offenders, but I'm not as skilled at woodworking as I imagined. That is, I made them slightly worse.

Also, with three or four of the boards I received (again, they may or may not have been budget supers), the wood was not straight. In all but one of these boards, strategic nailing straightened them sufficiently. The irreconcilable board resulted in a slightly off super.

Finally, a note on the 7D nails I bought from Mann Lake-- they're really not necessary. You can buy stronger, twisted 8D galvanized nails from Lowes or Home Depot for about the same price. They bend much less than the ones from Mann Lake, and you won't ever have to pay shipping.

Equipment arrival

All my equipment arrived today in four boxes, ranging from 40 to 60 pounds each. Needless to say, I unpacked it immediately.



Everything is there. Although, I can't tell the difference between the commercial grade and budget grade supers. Also, I realized I don't exactly know what an entrance reducer looks like.



The economy hooded coat fits like you would expect an economy hooded coat to fit-- baggy in all the places, and a little short. The hood is more comfortable than I thought it would be.



Assembly details to follow...

Bees ordered

Originally, I wanted to order two nucs. I emailed a few people about their nucs-- Where do they get their queens? Can they accommodate an all medium super setup? Do they treat for mites before handing off the nucs? Price?

Robert Steffes had five (out of seven) nucs left at $150. He gets his queens from Steve Respasky, local master beekeeper. Best of all, he said he could give me medium frames for my setup. No pesticide treatment beforehand.

$150 seemed a little steep compared to Kopar Honey Farm's $105 per nuc, but Kopar couldn't give me medium frames unless I provided the equipment. And then, the nucs wouldn't be ready until June. They do offer packages at $80, and so I bought one of those. Mainly due to cost, I didn't get a second nuc from Robert. Partially though, I want to try out Kopar's queens. Apparently, they have Minnesota hygienics, which are fairly popular for their supposed Varroa mite resistance.

In hindsight, it might be better that I didn't get two nucs. I would have had to install them at the same time, thrust myself into the fire instead of the frying pan. Hopefully, though, both the nuc and the package will provide honey this summer.

Equipment build out & purchase

I own no beekeeping equipment, so I need to buy everything. The two issues I agonized over for the past few days were 1) What's my hive build/style? and 2) Where do I buy all this stuff?

I decided to start with two hives, both comprised entirely of 8 frame supers. My reasoning? I find comfort in modularity and simplicity. I could probably lift full 10 frame supers, but why? If there's an 8 frame option, and it works well for others, I see no reason to exert myself.

Some of my local beekeeping contacts sell equipment that they've ordered in bulk from one website or another. I admire their plight and really would like to help them out by buying from them, but my schedule is usually tight enough that I could do without the hour drive to their houses to pick up the equipment. That said, there are a multitude of beekeeping equipment merchants on the Internet. Looking at their websites, you'd think a computer professional never took up beekeeping. The website interfaces are mediocre at best, usually displaying their paper catalog digitally in some way.

The prices on all these merchant sites coincide with slight differences. Therefore, shipping and quantity discounts can be deal breakers. The winner, and apparently a popular choice, was Mann Lake LTD. Their interface is ok-- it's relatively easy to find everything you need. They offer free shipping for orders over $100, which is an easy goal to make for a first purchase. Also, their quantity discounts are non-negligible-- 20% in some cases.

For the interested, here's the list of everything I bought from them:
* (5) 7 5/8" (19.37 cm) Unassembled Hive Body Budget 8 Frame - Bulk
* (5) 7 5/8" (19.37 cm) Unassembled Hive Body Commercial 8 Frame - Bulk
* (1) 7 1/4" Unassembled Select Frames - Groove Top & Groove Bottom - Case of 100
* (1) 7D Nails - Approx 200/lb
* (1) 1 1/4" (3.18 cm) Nails - Approx 1150/lb
* (1) 3/4" (1.91 cm) Nails - Approx 2600/lb
* (1) 6 1/2" (16.51 cm) Waxed Rite-Cell® Foundation - Natural - Case if 100
* (1) Square Folding Veil w/string
* (1) 9" (22.86 cm) Hive Tool 1 - 11
* (1) 10 1/2" Frame Lifter and Scraper
* (2) 8 Frame Telescoping Cover With Inner Cover 1 - 4
* (1) 4" x 10" smoker (10.16 cm x 25.4 cm) With Guard
* (2) 8 Frame Top Feeder w/ Super
* (1) Economy Hooded Jacket Small
* (2) 8 Frame Bottom Board 1-4
* (2) 8 Frame Entrance Reducer
* (2) 8 Frame Varroa Screen Board 1 - 4

They didn't have 8 frame mouse guards...

All this cost me a whopping $558.65, with free shipping.

Beekeeping journal

Yet another blog. Hopefully, I'll continue to write in it.

My intention for this blog is to document the progress of my personal beekeeping experiences and the slow expansion of my new apiary. The more I learn, the more I'm expecting that my experience will be different than everyone else's to some degree. Luckily, Pittsburgh has a wide support network for craft apiarists.

I am completely new to beekeeping. So far, I read Storey's Guide To Keeping Honeybees by Richard E. Bonney and Malcom T. Sanford, I attended a local, 9-hour beekeeping class hosted by BurghBees, and I recently secured a some apiary space on the top of an industrial building in Lawrenceville, Pittsburgh. For the non-native, Lawrenceville is an up-and-coming (10 years running) neighborhood in The Big Smoke. It's home to Allegheny Arsenal and Allegheny Cemetery, where they buried all the workers that died in the famous Arsenal explosion of 1862.

Please comment and criticize my methods. I generally like to do things my way and/or against the grain, so I may not listen. However, if you argue your point well, I'm a sucker for sound logic, and will likely take your suggestion.