Another Solitary Bee House

I saw a Red Mason Bee investigating a flowerbed the other day, it paid no interest to the solitary bee and ladybord box I hung up last summer. I did a little google research and decided that perhaps the bees just don't like it. Maybe the holes are the wrong size, maybe they just don't like bamboo -it's not exactly a native plant afterall. I guess what's aesthetically pleasing to people isn't necessarily what bees want. My friend who'd drilled holes in some fenceposts was now host to 5 or 6 sets of mason bee brood so I decided to do the same. Except I don't have a wooden fence.

What I did have was a plank of treated wood and some wooden blocks left over from pallets I'd dismantled. They were going to be firewood for a friend but I decided to repurpose them as a bee hotel. Using some zinc plated nails I attached the blocks to the plank. With a 9mm drill bit and a smaller one maybe 3mm I drilled a load of holes in the blocks. Mason bees don't like holes over 1cm in diameter apparently, they also don't like raggy edged holes. The smaller holes were an afterthought really, I've got no idea what random insect life if any will want them.

I figured it was going to need a little protection from the rain so I cut an old slate roof tile to size. Googling how to cut roof slates found me umpteen pages telling me it's very easy to cut slates to size. You just use a slate cutter. Unfortunately I don't have a stale cutter. Instead I used a craft knife and a wood saw, it was hard work. Really hard work. But I got a piece the size I wanted. I used some pond liner adhesive to attach it -partly because it's none toxic to wildlife but mostly because I didn't feel like going half a mile to the hardware shop to get some other glue.

I knocked a couple of nails into the sides to hang it by and attached it it to one of the nails left in the wall from my impromptu bee barrier. Ideally it should be a meter up a southfacing wall but my southfacing wall has a lot of plants growing against it and I also thought cats might damage it or at least annoy any insects living in it by using it as a step when they jump off the wall. The west facing wall it's attached to is near the bee hives and also gets a lot of sun.

Solitary Bee House -hopefully

After this photo was taken I moved it a few feet to the left so it gets more sun. As it's basically made of junk and rubbish and all it's cost me is a few nails and a little time to make I won't be too offended if the bees don't occupy it..

To Catch A Swarm

About a year or so ago my cat had fleas. :( I treated the cat and called the council's Pest Control to spray the house - it's a waste of time trying to deal with them yourself, and not that pricey to just pay someone who knows what they're doing. Anyway we got talking about bees and they asked if I'd be interested in collecting swarms of honey bees if they had any reported. I said I would and gave them my number.

Yesterday I got a call about a honey bee swarm over in Bilton. It was in a hedge in an elderly chaps garden,  and would I like to collect them? Yes I would. would I charge for it? Nope, afterall assuming I didn't mess up I was going to come away with a little colony of bees. Saves them a job, saves the old chap some money, saves the bees lives, avoids a few millilitres of pesticides being used and gets me some bees. Everyone's a winner :) I got my stuff together, rang the chap, the bees had been there for 8 days so far.. Aided by Satnav I went to see the bees.

I've never actually collected a swarm before but I've read a lot about it and watched a lot of youtube videos on the subject so had a pretty good idea how to go about it. Basically you put a box above the cluster of bees and smoke them up into then put them in your hive, or you put the box or a sheet below and cut whatever branch they're on and pop them into your hive.
 

Looks simple enough

They were clustered on a fence about a foot above the ground so I decided to put the box above the bees and smoke them up into it. Unfortunately these bees didn't know as much about swarm catching as I thought I did and instead of going up into the box they ran down to the bottom of the fence.

Lying down and using my phone's built in torch (what will they think of next?) I had a look under the fence. I was slightly puzzled because there suddenly seemed to be a lot less bees. Looking at the small cluster I found they'ed been making comb. There was about three inches of pure white comb with stored nectar. I cut this out then resumed my examination of the shrinking bee colony. There was a few inches gap between the fence and the back of the neighbour's shed. They were in that gap. I realised that the bees I'd seen first, in the photo above, were only part of the cluster so the good news was more bees. Not being able to reach them was a little inconvenient though. Eventually I came up with a plan. I'd like to say a cunning plan but it was probably an obvious one really.

Putting the nucleus with five drawn frames vertically against the fence, propped up with stones from the garden wall and topped with the roof I aimed a few puffs of smoke behind the fence.

Blowing smoke behind the fence

I got quite a roar from the swarm clustered back there. Yup more bees than I'd thought. I gave them a lot more smoke. I wanted to drive them forward through the gaps in the fence and into the nuc. They were starting to come through the gaps. Puffing smoke through the fence all around the nuc there was nowhere else for them to go -plus there was the pull of the drawn comb, some honey in it and the lemongrass oil.

"We're in this box! Come on!"

Eventually I was able to see workers  at the edge of the nuc nosanoving. Nosawhating now? Oh sorry. Bees have a scent gland called a Nosanov Gland at the tip of the abdomen. It makes a scent they use to let other bees know where the colony is. You can see there's an upside down bee in the picture above with her abdomen at a funny angle and her wings a blurr as she wafts scent. When I couldn't see any more bees looking down the gaps in the fence I lifted the nuc roof and found a mass of bees in it at the end that'd been towards the fence. Setting that down I pulled back the nuc and stood it upright. There were more bees in there and on the frames tops nearest the roof cluster.

Removing the middle two frames I took the roof and turned it over, with the cluster above the gap left by the removed  frames, and gently dealt it a sound wallop with the base of my fist then another. Glad I made the thing so strong now. That knocked all the bees but two into the nuc. I brushed out the pair of stragglers and carefully replaced the two frames. After a little smoke and application of the bee brush I put the crownboard and roof on and tied the whole thing up with a pretty blue bow.

In the box.

Well okay so it was a ratchet strap not a bow. I stood the nuc with it's entrance open close to the site the bees had been gathered and left it till about half past ten in the evening. That meant adding another trip to Bilton and back to my day but it gave any foraging bees or others who were still flying time to come and rejoin the colony in the nuc before I took it away. I let the chap know I was gong to come back when it was cooler and darker to take them away and he pressed me to accept a tenner for my fuel which I did. I returned after dark, blocked the entrance and slowly drove the colony home.

I'd seen and heard some big noisy drones whilst hiving the colony but hadn't see the queen at all during the exercise and there were no eggs in the comb they'ed built. There's always a chance they didn't have one, and if they did there's the chance I somehow squished her or that the bees got annoyed during the operation and killed her themselves. However when I got my stethoscope to the hive today I heard a high pitched noise which I think was a virgin queen piping so I suspect I managed to get her and just have to wait and see if she manages to mate now. That means leaving them alone for a fortnight. I may give them a feeder depending on the weather but there was already some food in the frames I gave them and I was able to see foragers coming and going today. When I open the hive in a fortnight I'll have to check for disease and varroa mite levels. It was a little trial and error and could have gone more smoothly but I think it went quite well, didn't even damage a plant.

On the Increase

This week both hives were up to about 6 seams worth of bees in each. Hive2 would've been a lot stronger than Hive1 but the brood I moved from over seems to have equalised their numbers. If one colony is stronger than the other there's more chance of robbing and fighting between them so it's just as well to try and equalise them.

I think there's about 6 seams worth of bees in each hive now

Looking down a seam

Numbers in the colonies should increase exponentially so now the queens are both getting well into egg laying I should be able to start thinking about adding supers soon. The brood area is still in the middle of the hive with the food stores towards the entrance. This week I've moved an empty frame to between the brood and the food so hopefully they'll get filled with eggs soon.

After finding a wax moth in Hive2 a few inspections ago I later found a waxworm in Hive1. It's doubtful that there was only one worm in the whole hive but I've not seen any other evidence of wax moth since. As the numbers are increasing the bees should be better able to manage them anyway. Hive1 still has some sacbrood but it's still decreasing week by week.

Wax  worm. The last thing this one saw was a chicken.

During the last inspection I made a bit of a cock up. I saw a bee on a frame of stores with red pollen which I decided was worth photographing, so I leaned the frame against the other hive whilst I used both hands to take a photo. Unfortunately the frame fell over dropping bees and nectar between the hives :-o Only three bees got squashed, but it could've been avoided. I might make up a stand to hold a single frame for future photographic endeavours. The spilled nectar will have been collected up by the bees pretty sharpish but that's the kind of situation that can trigger robbing. It can also attract other bees which can mean disease being introduced to your colonies.

I noticed Hive2 had been busy propolising the tops of the frames to the crownboard so I decided to put a propolis trap on the hive and see how they do with it. I've mentioned propolis before. It's basically bee glue, they make it from tree sap. There's a few different types of traps for propolis, the ones I've opted for are just a thin mesh placed above the frames below the crownboard. When it's been propolised you peel it off, roll it up and pop it in the freezer. Propolis is normally really sticky stuff but frozen it becomes very brittle. Once frozen you can, in theory, crack it off the mesh for processing, storage or whatever. I've been processing the propolis I got from the auction and plan to write a proper entry about it at a later date.

Propolis trap on Hive2. The crownboard will go over that.

Close up of the propolis trap.

Wax Moth pays a Visit

Today's inspection yielded some good news :) Starting with Hive1 I checked the frame of eggs I'd added last week to see if the bees were making a queen. I was happy to see that they weren't and also there were new eggs on the comb. Going through the frames I saw the red marked queen who I'd been unable to locate previously. It seems she had a bit of a break from laying but has resumed again. I think I'll leave her in there, if the bees don't like her they can supersede her -I'm pretty sure they know a lot more about queen bees than I do anyway. Some of the brood from the frame I'd added had hatched out too and whilst I could still see some sacbrood infected larvae numbers were lower than in previous inspections, which I think may be in part due to the increase in workforce.

I had a look at the rapid feeders I'd put on both hives and found a few drowned bees in both. I pulled out the dead ones, my chickens seemed to enjoy their syrup coated bees. I think I may roughen the sides of the plastic island the bees walk down with some coarse sandpaper to give them better purchase. I noticed Hive2 had taken most of the syrup down already whilst Hive1 had taken just a little so far.

Drowned Bees in Rapid Feeder

Opening Hive 2 I was surprised to see a small pale moth between the follower board and the hive wall. Wax Moths can pose a danger to bees. They lay eggs in active hives and their larvae called Wax Worms then live on the beeswax, bee larvae casings and developing bees. I tried to catch it unsuccessfully and eventually it fluttered out of the hive. Bizarrely I found the moth sat on the frame perch after I closed up the hives and was able to take a photo of it before killing it.

Greater Wax Moth

After looking on google I've decided it's probably a Greater Wax Moth (Galleria mellonella). They're actually pretty common things and their larvae are often used as fishing bait or to feed reptiles and carnivorous plants, as well as being eaten by people who aren't too squeamish about entomophagy. The bees should be able to control wax worm within the hive but numbers are still a little low so I'd guess that's how it got into the hive. For the bees the space between the follower board and hive wall is technically outside of the hive as they see it so maybe they'd've got it when it went to try and lay eggs in the comb. Of course it may have already done that. Wax worms can also damage the wooden frames of the comb too so I'll be looking out for any on the next inspection.

There were no swarm preparations in either hive so far, but I did spot a couple of drones wandering about in both hives. The numbers currently being low though they're not being made in the sacrificial drone comb yet.

Spot the drones, there's at least 3 of them in this picture

Changing Urban Landscape

A potential problem for urban beekeepers is people. Other people. The prospect of a couple of hundred thousand stinging insects living next door is probably fairly daunting for most people in this country -especially those not too familiar with bees. When siting my hives, well intially my hive, I had to position them to minimise the chances of any neighbour/bee encounters.

Luckily bees fly in straight lines. When they fly over an obstacle they maintain that height instead of tracking the terrain. So my hives have been sat in a corner of the garden with the entrances facing a wall and my neighbour's shed. The bees have been flying over the wall and shed then crossing neighbouring gardens too high to bump into anyone. Good plan Batman.

For reasons unknown the garden wall is far lower here than the rest of the wall. There was a section of rather decrepit wooden fencing sat on top of the low wall and leaning on the shed, it was falling apart though so before getting the bees I got a couple of pallets, a plank of wood, some screws and some wood stain and made a new section to replace it.

Palletwood panel and shed

Recently my neighbour decided to replace the old shed it with a brand spanking new corner shed. If I'd known I would've just closed the hive entrances up the night before work was started but I wasn't aware until the old shed started coming down.. I suppose about three hundred quids worth of new shed (some assembly required) sat in our shared passageway for a fortnight could've been a hint but as I rarely use the passage I hadn't noticed the quarter ton of cut wood neatly stacked there. The upshot was the bees were already flying and if I'd closed up the entrances returning foragers wouldn't be able to get back into the hives. Foraging bees are the older workers, they also do guard duties. When you get too close to a hive they're the ones who start headbutting you and if you're a bit slow on the uptake they're also the ones who'll sting you. So, a cloud of confused angry forager bees building up was something to avoid.

I lit the smoker and sat it on the hives to calm them. With some 20mm plastic mash, a signpost, part of a door, half a shed side and my suddenly redundant palletwood fence section the neighbour and myself made a quick barrier for the bees to fly over. It gave the garden a bit of a redneck look but did the job and next door finished taking the shed was taken down.

Shanty town chic

The neighbours had some spare bricks and decided to raise that section of wall in line with the rest of it. For that the barrier would need to come down. Believe it or not bees don't see red, so that night by the light of a bike rear light I jammed some sponge into the reduced hive entrances locking the bees in. I also took the opportunity to put some landscape barrier down on the ground in front of the hives as its a bit awkward to reach if anything starts growing there. I popped some stones and a couple of breezeblocks on top of that so the chickens don't just rake it up and threw some lose soil and mulch over the fabric.

The wall grew

The builder came along and added eight courses of brick in an afternoon before laying a concrete footing for the shed, when I got back from work I opened up the hive entrances again. The bees had stored food in the hives and I'd also put feeders in place so it wasn't a huge hardship for them.The next day the bees were free to go about their business whilst the new shed parts were being painted. When it got dark I got out my bike light and locked them in again so they didn't bother people whilst they were assembling the new shed. Better to err on the side of caution keeping bees in urban areas.

The next day I was surprised to see a few bees on the outside of the hive. As the day wore on there were far more of them buzzing about than I'd expected. I did briefly wonder if there was a gap in one of the closed up entrances and they'ed been coming out of but the bees seemed to be arriving rather than leaving. I lit the smoker stood it with the smoke drifting above the hives and put some crownboards and correx sheets on top of the wall to make them fly higher.

In the evening I opened the entrances, it was too late for bees to be going out but it gave the foragers knocking about a chance to get back in. Next door the shed was taking shape but wasn't quite finished so I figured I'd need to seal them in another day. It'd been pretty hot and stuck inside the hives the bees had no access to water -well they had some 1:1 syrup I'd given them to stimulate brood but that was all and I'd given the mesh floors a quick spray of water, but I thought they might need a more substantial water source for another warm day so I poured some tap water into the indentations in the tops of the rapid feeders I'm currently using. I didn't know for certain that the bees would find it, afterall it's dark in there and it has no scent but it seemed a good idea. In retrospect what I think I should've possibly done was just place a wet sponge above the crownboard that the bees could've reached.

By about five o'clock the next day the shed was finished and in place. There was a small gap between two parts of the trellis I spotted a couple of bees flying through so I put a little plastic mesh over it. There's a yellow and green leaved creeper of some kind near it so perhaps I'll be able to train it to cover this gap and remove the wire mesh. Opening the hive entrances again it wasn't long before bees started flying again. I soon spotted a coroner bee carrying away a tiny chitin clad corpse for disposal away from the hive.

New wall, trellis and shed behind the hives

 Talking to the neighbours they'ed observed a large wasp attacking the bees on one of the days they were open. I suspect wasp numbers will be pretty low at the moment but given how low in number in the colonies are I've decided to put out a wasp trap for now.

Water Gathering and Frog Life

Another inspection done and I'm pretty sure Hive1 is queenless. I'd marked with red paint last month but haven't seen her since. I also couldn't see any eggs in the hive this time. It's quite possible that after marking her the workers took a dislike to her and offed her, bit odd they didn't start making a replacement though. There's also always the chance she's still in there but really good at hiding and not currently laying any eggs but I doubt that and if she's not laying eggs she needs replacing anyway. When I inspected them on Friday I moved a frame with eggs from Hive2 over to Hive1 so if they need a queen they can get on with making a new one. When I inspect them next week I should know for certain as there'll be queen cells on the fame I added. If they've not made any Queen cells then the Queens in there and I need to revisit the drawing board -or more likely find, squish and replace her.

Today it's been warm and sunny and the bees have been busy gathering water. In their first year they only collected from the bird bath but this years they're collecting from the nearest pond as well.

"We'll be fine if we act like a sparrows."

Sunny day

Air traffic over the pond was a bit honeybee heavy but I spotted a black and yellow thing flying about that was different. It was a Sunfly or Helophilus pendulus, a hover fly which wikipedia tells me is associated with waterbodies, such as my pond. They need very wet soil for their larvae which eat rotting matter and the adults pollinate plants for us. Helpful things to have round the garden, which is just as well as they're apparently very common.

Sunfly sunbathing poolside

Collecting water is a hazardous job for bees. There's always the chance they'll fall in. Failing that there's a load of frogs who'd like a bee or two to dine on. There's a large contingent of tadpoles in both ponds at the moment and adult frogs can be seen and heard in the garden too.

Common Frog Tadpoles

Come on in the water's fine.

"Hello bee, what's it like having legs? I'm thinking of growing some myself."
"Well I like em. I've got six and they have these dead useful grippy things on the end."
"I'm thinking of four, two big ones and the back and a couple of small ones at the front."

Stand off.

Slow Start

This time last year the hives were bursting with bees, Hive2 had two brood boxes on it and I was preparing to split off a second colony. Not quite the same story this year unfortunately. Today's inspection showed the buildup is still very slow. Hive1 had 5 seams of bees and Hive2 only three. York Beekeepers Association have put back their 2013 auction to June because of the lateness of the season start so if my colonies haven't built up numbers by then  I'm toying with the idea of uniting them and purchasing a new colony.

In Hive2 the queen has been laying and despite her patchy start seems to have managed a fairly normal brood pattern. Ideally there should be a large oval area of capped brood with young uncapped brood on the edge and eggs around them.

Hive2 are getting their act together albeit a little slowly.

There's a few gaps in the capped brood but they've mostly got healthy looking brood in them whilst some have eggs in them. The uniformity of the pattern is used as a reflection of the quality of the queen, whilst that pattern was good there was still not a lot of it. I'm not entirely sure how long I ought to wait and watch before decided to requeen or not but as long as she's laying eggs if she starts failing the bees will take matters into theirs own hands (well okay claws) and replace her themselves.

Scarlet Lady

Marking the queen made her far easier to spot, and it doesn't appear to have done her any harm. Bees breathe through holes in their sides called spiracles and their exoskeleton has a waxy coating making it an impermeable surface unlike animal skin which is a selectively permeable membrane so the bit of paint shouldn't really effect her like it would affect a human.

The only red thing in the hive

The bees have been busy bringing in some yellow pollen too which you can see in the above pictures. I'd fed both colonies recently but neither had taken much syrup down so I removed the feeders today and poured the now mouldy syrup away. the brood pattern in Hive1 was pretty poor due to sacbrood. Last year I had this in Hive2 and after removing the infected larvae it seemed to clear up. There's no treatment for it but it's something the bees should be able to take care of themselves normally. Sacbrood is generally seen as something some bees are genetically susceptible to and the usual solution is to replace the queen. It might be that a stronger queen has brood less susceptible to it or it may just be the break with no brood that causes the virus to die back. As this colony hasn't had it previously I'm inclined to think its presence is due to the small size of the colony so if, or hopefully when, their numbers increase they should be able to cope with it.

Patchy brood pattern

I didn't actually see the queen in Hive1 today at all. There were a few eggs though. I also spotted a large drone wandering along the comb, probably the first of the season in my colonies. Also watched a couple new bees emerging from their cells. All in all not a great start to the year really. Both colonies building slowly and Hive1 dealing with sacbrood. On the plus side both colonies have stored food, new bees are emerging and they're not preparing to swarm yet.