Spider Victim

Uh oh! One of our girls fell prey to a spider who was camping out in front of the bee hive. The bee latched on to her head/neck and the bee was paralyzed. Poor bee!

AFB Salvage

After conferring with several experienced beekeepers, we came up with a plan to try and save Cam's hive. I already pulled five suspicious frames earlier in the week but the AFB spores can persist in the stored honey and old comb. So what I did was to shake all of the poor bees out of the old frames onto all new foundation. I basically turned them back into a package so it was like turning the clock back to where I was a year ago. I can't use the frames of honey that I put in the honey bank last year either. Bummer. I can extract them later though because the honey is safe for people, just not for bees.
There's a feeder and a reducer on the hive now. I also gave them the first of three doses of an antibiotic. Toby's hive got a prophylactic dose too. Now I just wait for the bees to draw out fresh new comb and keep their feeder full. I might give them a pollen patty too. There's lot of pollen available, but they have no place to store it yet.
I did a mite count last week, too. What a pain. I put cooking spray oil on pieces of paper and put them on the bottom board. After several days, I pulled them out and tried to count the mites. Ick😁. I saw mites, dirt, pollen, bee parts, all kinds of debris. Hard to tell what you're looking at. Next, I'm trying a natural treatment with powdered sugar weekly for the next month. It's supposed to dislodge the mites that are on the adult bees. For the mites that are on the brood, I'm using the drone comb. I replaced the frame in Toby's hive and Cam's has been removed in the AFB process. Whew!

Attack of the Brown Slime!

Oh no. Looks like my beginner's luck has officially run out. Cam's hive (the one that had dysentery) has AFB, American Foulbrood. I noticed some darker than normal cappings on a couple of frames of brood as well as some perforations which can be a sign of trouble. Seeing brown slime inside the cell when you poke it with a stick confirmed the diagnosis. I went back to the hive today to go through every single frame and ended up pulling FIVE that showed signs of the disease. Yikes. That leaves only 11 healthy (hopefully!) frames and one of those is a frame of drone comb that I'll rotate out this weekend. That doesn't leave much for the bees. I'm going to try and treat the hive with antibiotics to clear up or control the disease. Fingers crossed. If the AFB spreads, I'll have to destroy the hive. What a roller coaster. I went through every frame of Toby's hive today which looks beautiful and without any signs of AFB. That's the good news. For now...

Getting a Nuc Ready

Toby's hive is rocking right now. Both boxes are packed with bees and brood. No swarm cells yet but I've spotted a couple of queen cups and lots of drones. I'm going to pull some frames and make a nuc from it soon, maybe next week. Toby helped put the finishing touches on it this week.

Happy Bee Day!

Wow, the hives are almost a year old! It's package day this Saturday. I won't be getting any but some of my friends are. Flowers are popping up all over now: forsythia, ornamental cherries, weeping willows, violets, bulbs. Even a few early dandelions. It's been in the 50s and rainy/breezy but everything is really greening up. If we get a stretch of 60-ish temps, the garden will just explode.
The hives are looking good; I saw the first of the drones this week (bees, not brood). I need to finish painting the nuc box so I can make it up soon. I reversed the hive bodies in Toby's hive but it's pretty much already full with brood, pollen and honey. Time to super soon!