Apiary Journal 2011
by Caroline Abbott
Reporting on the Kalamazoo Bee Club Apiary
Location: 1327 108th Ave. Otsego, MI 49078
July 8th, 2011 – Caroline, Anneliese, Laura and Tim Abbott
The hives looked great this morning. The bees were hovering in front of the hives, facing the hives to orient themselves to their new location before heading out to forage. They were very calm and didn’t even pay attention to us.
We added a super to each hive, both were bare foundation. We didn’t want to take a chance with drawn comb because we found a lot of nasty stuff in the equipment at the former location and didn’t want to introduce any of that to the hives. We added the ventilators and put a brick on top of each hive.
The hives should be ready for a field day in about a month. We will check in a week or so to see if they are storing up honey.
July 7, 2011 – Craig Fuller, Cathy King, The Abbott Family
Today was apiary moving day. We waited until evening, then sealed up the hives and moved them to 1327 108th Ave., Otsego, MI., to a gravel pit. Hive #2 was stronger than Hive #1, but both looked good. There were so many bees in hive #2 we had to staple some of them into the screen to seal the entrance. Hive #1 had a clear entrance by the time we stapled the screen on to move it.
The hives were prepared for moving, loaded, moved and placed in their new location in the gravel pit, then the entrance screens were removed.
May 7, 2011 – Craig Fuller and Janet DeZwaan
Again about 10 adults and one child attended. Most were the same as the previous meeting, but some were new. Hive #1 had not released the queen. The candy hole in the queen cage was enlarged and left for the bees to release her. This hive was weaker than the other hive.
Hive #2 had released their queen. She was spotted in the bottom brood box. This hive appeared stronger. Attendees asked questions about queens. It was observed that there were lots of dead mites in the wooden package boxes.
May 4, 2011 (John Maile, Craig Fuller, Janet DeZwaan)
Club apiary field day to install two new packages. Toughly 10 adults and one child were in attendance. The equipment was prepared in advance. The leaders explained the process and installed the bees, answering questions as they did so. The child installed the second package with assistance.
April 1, 2011
All five hives were dead, which we knew going in, so we wanted to check inside to determine why they died, if we could, and to clean them up and get ready for pack installation at the end of the month.
Hive#1 – Appeared to have starved. The cluster was at the top with heads buried in empty cells and the only honey left on the hive was in frames at the edges where they probably couldn’t get to it.
Hive #2 and Hive #3 – Both had excessive moisture, which we think may have caused them to die. The entrance reducers left the entrances very small, and the top ventilators were positioned in such a way to limit the air flow. There was a lot of water/moisture in the hives. There was quite a lot of honey on both hives, which indicated they did not starve.
Hive #4 and Hive #5 – appeared to probably have been dead before winter even began, possibly due to queenlessness. The one hive had no bees, no honey, no nothing, indicating it was robbed out before winter even started. It was probably dead before it was winterized.
Course of action:
We saved out the usable honey to put on the new packages, cleaned up the equipment and left some out for Jacob’s bees to rob, and planned to store whatever else we wouldn’t need for the packages.
We determined that we are going to do a better job this year keeping track of the hives. Obviously the hives weren’t inspected at the time they were prepared for winter. One hive had an empty super on top that had obviously been empty at the time it was winterized. Another had half of the frames in the top super just bare foundation. The completely empty hive was probably clearly dead before winter and should have been taken down instead of prepared for winter. All good lessons of what to do better on next year, and we will hopefully learn from them and have a more successful experience this year!
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