Frankenmoth!

Introduction to wax moths
Oh no! Not another Frankenhive!

Well, not exactly. Turns out that. due to improvements in my barn, the increased winter temperatures have, for the first time, made wax moth an issue in my stored equipment. I found a stack of infested honey frames that needed cleaning up.

Typical wax moth damage. 
(arrow shows an actual adult moth, larval tunnels, and frass)

This frame was almost completely eaten out!

So, just enlisting the help of the Farm hives for the task. Infested frames put on top of the bonified honey supers. The bees will kill the moths, their larvae and eggs, and clean and rebuild the comb.

Return of the Queen of Frankenhive

She's baaaaack!
Well, after several days the class popped the lid on the former Frankenhive to have a look at the tamed throng. Surprize! The top box, supposedly with no queen (having been fatally wounded in action) never-the-less had tons of bees all over the pile of old combs, festoons hanging from the lid, and...eggs & young larvae! So, somehow, a queen was once again with the colony. Where did she come from? Could the damaged queen have miraculously recovered? Was there a sneaker queen in the colony that took over? We may never know. Weird. So, the hive had still been a double-queen affair despite the initial attempt to combine.

To try once again to tame the beast, the known queen from the bottom box was removed, all the bees from the top box (including the mystery queen, hopefully) were shaken and brushed off their old combs onto the new foundation below to join the existing small, now queenless colony there, and then all the brood-containing combs were put back in the to box on top of a queen excluder. Three weeks hence, all the brood will have emerged and the old comb can be recycled and replaced with new foundation. This should be the last step in making a single-queen, strong colony. Or so we hope.

Getting Stung

Initiation ceremony - it's not about the pain. Roll up yer sleeve, honey, this is for your own good!

The first activity on the first day of the Bee Course is to get stung. This is as much about how to avoid the pain as curing the anxiety about it and to test for allergic reactions. Advice: quickly scrape off the stinger to avoid maximum venom dosage. Don't squeeze it or you'll inject all the venom.
Yes, the poor bee will die, having left a good part of her innards behind. In nature, though, the attacker will likely flee or think twice before proceeding to harass the colony and one dead kamakazi worker out of thousands of 0.75 X identical twins is a worthwhile loss for the protection.

Frankenhive!

Saga of the quizzical transformation of a thrown-together hive.

Here is Frankenhive! It was the result of adding 3 different colonies together, 2 from "take-outs", i.e. bees removed from walls, etc., and 1 free swarm. It was not clear that any of these had queens when they were acquired from Jerry the Bee Guy. Also, we were short of equipment, so the easiest thing was to just put them all together and see what happens! The different groups of bees were added on top of one another and separated with newspaper to slow down the mingling of bees, which is supposed to prevent fighting. It got to be quite an impressive tower hive.

Two weeks later, it is time to look inside the monster! Always interesting to peep inside a hive. Well, here is what greeted the beekeeper. Starting from the top box, a massive "festoon" of worker bees, making long chains of each other, swinging like trapeze experts. But no new comb, rather unexpected.

Festoon!

This is a swarm which was being combined with Hive 5 a few days earlier -- the workers, even without a queen, had drawn out several combs from the lid of their box. You can see the edge of it underneath the covering of bees.

Here is a picture of a similar and more usual situation

Below the festooning mass of worker bees was the original pile of extracted combs covered in bees, many recently emerged. At the bottom of the pile of old comb was one with some new brood, somewhat unexpectedly. And as the last piece was being lifted up, there was a queen! Unfortunately, she had been fatally wounded in the dissection of the hive. So only her workers would survive hence, fine to combine with whatever was in the lower boxes.

Below the top colony was a box of comb that had originally also received a swarm. But there were no bees in it now and none of the foundation had been drawn. Bees from both the top and bottom boxes had refused it in deference to their old comb. Below this middle box was another layer of newspaper with some corner holes chewed through to the bottom box, as intended, and piles of paper shreds from chewing up of the upper barrier.

Finally, in the bottom box there was another pile of original, natural combs from the first take-out colony. As with the top hive, there was a queen and a small amount of new brood but lots of recently emerged workers. This time the queen was carefully lifted out and temporarily caged to avoid squashing her as the old comb was removed. The worker bees were shaken off and frames placed in the box in place of the old comb. Then the queen was reintroduced to the reconstituted box with her workers. All the brood was moved to the top box, which was then lowered on top of the bottom box with a queen excluder separating the two layers. This will keep the queen from laying eggs in the pile of old comb above while the remainder of the brood emerges from it and will allow eventual recycling of the old comb. The workers will pass down into the queen's box and begin to help rear the brood and, hopefully, under new conditions, draw out the foundation on the new frames. Voila! The monster will transform into a normal hive. It already looks less scary:

New Queens Released, More Swarms

On Sunday our new queens were released into two un-queened receiver colonies and they dove right in. They'd been in cages for 3 days, each getting used to the odors of her new realm. In a month the worker bees will begin to take on her characteristics and we hope for the best!

Jerry the Bee Guy keeps supplying us with bees to fortify the existing hives. The 10th swarm so far (including removal jobs) was added to hive 6 later on Sunday. This is an awkward way to build up the bee population but it should work.

Bee guy

Jerry the Bee Guy saves the day!

Here is Marvin Johnson, a.k.a. Jerry the Bee Guy, bee removal expert and purveyor of fine evicted bee stock, the likes of which now populate several Farm beehives. Colleting docile swarms is easier on the catcher and the bees compared with cutting an entire defensive hive out of a building. But Marvin does this for a living and has helped us save money and build up our hives at a time when bees are no longer available because of high demand and the advancing season

Royalty On Her Own Time

Queens in transit. A few of her daughter workers are included to take care of her until she is released. 

We waited an extra few weeks. Then an extra 9 nerve-wracking days during which time the "receiver" colonies gave up and began to rear their own queens. Finally they arrived, our experimental stock from "local" breeder in southern Oregon. Immediately they were installed in small "nuc" hives with small populations of anxiously awaiting workers. The nucs were made up from two of the best swarms collected the past 2 weeks. One was queenless after ensconced in a Farm hive but the other had a queen that waited a week to begin laying; she had to be transferred to another swarm hive that was also apparently queenless. The new hybrid queens will be released from their cages in 3 days and should be laying within a day or so in their adopted colony. They are supposed to be "resistant" but these days, this is like saying your cereal is full of "goodness". But they are as local as we could find on short notice and we will be testing them against Varroa mites and for hygienic behavior.

Boom & Bust Behind Glass

Observation hive dynamics take a downturn.

Queen cells first observed

It became obvious that the observation hive cast off a swarm when 3 queen cells were seen on one of the upper frames. The population of the hive, recently bolstered with the addition of brood and bees from another hive, was also suddenly lower. On June 7th, two of the queen cells were open. By then, the bees had diminished to only enough to cover a couple of frames. A queen was seen among them. However, she seemed lethargic and did not command a very impressive retinue. Sometimes pre-mating queens behave differently, so this could have been the situation. Weather would have prevented mating anytime in the past few days. But on closer inspection, her right rear leg appeared paralyzed, which is possibly why she was slow. She may have been injured in fighting with her emerged sister. This is not a good sign. Will she survive? Will she lay? In a week or so we should know. She may need to be replaced.
Life behind glass is always more precarious than in a normal hive. Fortunately, we have the means to stabilize the situation and should have a vibrant colony on display by Summer term!