Did you know the BCBA has a Google Group? If you raise bees in Barnstable Country, please join us at the address below. While you don’t need to be a member to join this group, I’d highly encourage you to do so. The group is just starting, but we hope to make a meeting place to exchange information about our trials and tribulations of beekeeping on the Cape.

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/barnstable-county-beekeepers-association

A few days ago, I wrote about crazy comb, my name for burr or wild comb. I’d found it on my fourth hive inspection in the new medium super I had put on top of their brood box. While trilled that they were building new comb, I was confused as to how to understand this strange comb design.

The answers came from the Boston Beekeepers Club, from a very helpful beek named Megan, and bee expert named Jean-Claude who taught a class I took, and who also sold me the nuc to start my hive.

If you think about it, traditionally bees make their hives in hollow trees and other formations that provide a cavity. They start to build comb, and build it down, further and further, as long as it’s stable. Sometimes it touches the bottom of the cavity, but often stays suspended like a stalactite. When I put the new super on top of their existing brood box, I expected them to fly to the top of the new super and start building new comb down to eventually meet up with the original brood box. But why would they do that? They don’t do this in nature. As I have heard time and time again from experienced beeks:

Make changes in line with nature – not against it.

As Jean-Claude suggested, beeks often add on supers in exactly the opposite way they bees are engineered to build them out. Instead, by putting a new super on the bottom of the existing boxes, we are extending the cavity, and letting them naturally extend their comb by building it down instead of forcing bees up, and then down.

So today I swapped their bottom brood box, about 30 pounds by my estimation, with the new super, thus allowing them to build out the new comb as an extension from the top brood box. And yes, they were pissed about the intrusion. As soon as I started to force a crack in the seam between their brood box and the screen bottom below it, a few hundred swarmed me with that angry buzz. I swear that had tiny pitchforks and torches. I had to stop and pull out a smoker to complete the work, something I only use when absolutely necessary.

As a bonus, I followed Megan’s suggestions to keep the burr comb, now mostly filled with uncapped honey. While I’m sure their traditional honey will taste better, I can tell you that their work-in-progress uncapped honey tastes yummy!

Well, according to beek right-of-passage, I became a full-fledged beek today – I was stung.

Like so many had warned me before, it’s when you get sloppy that it happens. When you don’t do what you know you should. When you cut corners.

So there I was, in my polo shirt, bathing suit and flip-flops, showing a friend how I didn’t need a bee suit just to change out their syrup. Showing him how gentle they were. He had the bee suit – not me. Because… I dunno… Just because, OK? I have no excuse. It was stupid – I knew better.

And then it happened. As I pulled out their syrup feeder, still about one-third full of syrup, one of the ladies decided I was robbing her sisters, and took one for the team. And since I was wearing a bathing suit, I was stung in a place that would have made Lorena Bobbit proud.

Lesson learned: Wear protective clothing. Or suffer the sting. Period.

I set out to do the 4th hive inspection today accompanied by my dear friend Christopher, after too much rum from the night before. Since it was his wife was the one who got me interested in this unusual hobby, I thought it was only fitting to drag him along, for his photographic skills if nothing else.

Upon opening up the inner cover, I was trilled to see the ladies building new comb on the upper super I had added two weeks ago. While I have always been told that bees build comb down from the top, and usually along the lines of the frame, they are building it up from the bottom, and across the frames as the picture shows. Since I don’t plan on harvesting any honey from the new super, leaving it instead to fill with honey and brood, having this crazy comb design seems fine by me. As long as the bees think it’s a good idea, who am I to question their logic?

Unfortunately this means I can’t pull apart the frames for a full inspection without tearing their newly minted comb, so this means the inspection was a short, but positive one. I was able to pull out just two frames to let Christopher take a few pictures of their progress. And yes, they were busy as bees.

I opened up the hive for a very quick, non-invasive look today, and was delighted with what I found. While there were no signs of new comb in the medium box with no foundation (it’s too soon), the three frames of wax-foundation in the original bottom brood box had cross-connected and regular comb on it in random places. I only was able to lift out the wax-foundation frames about an inch as the cross-connected comb was ripping when I started to lift. I carefully lowered and replaced the frames, squirting a few mists of 1:1 syrup on top of the wax-foundation frames, hoping the mists would carry some of the sugar down the frames I couldn’t full pull out.

What this means to me is simple:

1. For some reason the bees got the signal and decided the start building on the wax-foundation, horizontally expanding their overcrowded brood box.
2. They are expanding, so they are not likely to swarm.
3. They are doing expanding their habit so they can store up provisions for the winter.

I am so happy, I did a bee dance. If I didn’t look silly enough in a full, white suit in my front yard, doing a little dance made me look like a bad John Travolta impersonator. Thank goodness I have tolerant neighbors.

4th frame covered brood & bees

As I did the inspection this afternoon, I came away both thrilled and disappointed. Thrilled that the hive is doing well as tt seems to have doubled in size again, and every frame was teaming with bees on both sides. Ever single inch of those frame was full of comb, and full of bees. That is every frame of the original frames. The disappointing news is that the three additional frames of wax foundation in the main brood box, and the medium box above it with eight frames of wax foundation remained untouched. While there were lots of bees crawling on it, not a single frame with foundation had been built out – not one.

So while I am thrilled the hive is doing so well, I fear it is now “honey bound” as I didn’t see as many brood as my last inspection two weeks ago. However, I will admit that there were so many bees that it was hard to tell what was on each frame, so there could have been a lot of brood I didn’t see. The only way I know how to relieve this is to get another brood box going. So today I swapped the wax foundation frames in the top brood box with foundation-less frames, using thin strips of wood hanging down about an inch from each frame instead of foundation.

What I have given them is essentially an expanded empty cavity in a rotted tree. There are no artificial guides showing them where and how to draw comb, they must do it themselves the way they have for millions of years. While it will take more resources for them to draw the comb themselves, this is what they seem to want to do, so I am going to let Mother Nature take her course and see where she leads them.

Whether the bees will take to the foundation-less frames or not is unknown, but I do know they don’t have much choice now as they need to expand somewhere. Fingers crossed for the next inspection.

The tree is in full bloom, about two weeks ahead of its normal schedule, and the bees are going nuts on it. During the day the entire tree actually buzzes with such intensity that you can’t tell what part of the tree is making the noise. On closer examination, you realize it’s not a single section, but every branch has at least a few bees on it. While I can’t be sure all the honey bees I see on it are from my hive, there are a lot of bumble bees as well, making me wonder if they ever fight for a flower, or if there are so many that they just shuffle into position before ravaging the flower and moving onto the next one. I’ve never witnessed a bee fight, but I bet somebody gets stung.

According the FDA, the average worker bee makes 12 or more trips from the hive per day, but only bringing back pollen from a single flower variety each trip. A single worker will have visited a few thousand flowers each day.

I finally bought half gallon mason jars for feeding the bees. These size jars can be harder than you think to find, so I was luck to find them at all, and on sale to boot. The six-pack should last me a good long time as they don’t break easily. They are the “wide-mouth” variety, so they have the same size (3.4″ diameter) lids as my quart jars, thus making the retrofit in the feeder easy.

Their only downside is that they are much (about 4 times) heavier than their quart siblings, and thus slightly more awkward to get in the hive. I also noticed they are just tall enough to prevent my hive lid from seating correctly, so I build a simple frame to raise of the roof about an inch up, thus accommodating the taller jar. I also build the small frame to have 1/8″ slits along the two longer sides to allow for airflow, but not other flying insects. I don’t know if this will help, but it can’t hurt.

I finally found the exact size of the 1:1 syrup jar I have been feeding my bees. While the formula at 1:1 matters, the size of the jar doesn’t, except that I need to change it out more often. The old mason jar I have been using is 4 cups filled almost to the top, so that’s a quart. They are now seeming to go though this ever 24-48hrs, so I need some bigger jars, or more of them if I want to deal with the expanding size of the hive. Tomorrow I’ll try searching for a half-gallon (two quarts) mason jar, and possibly use two of them at once. That would be four times the syrup I am feeding them now, therefore lasting long enough for me to go away for a long weekend and not worry they are running dry.

I now have enough empirical data to say that they are drinking the syrup only when they can’t forage, as the syrup is drained after a rainy, or very windy day. Today it’s in the low 70s with a gentle breeze, about an easy of a day on the Cape as it gets, and the ladies are leaving and entering the hive so quickly there is a shuffle on the landing pad each time one comes or goes. Clearly they are ready for work when the weather permits, and judging from their colorful pollen sacks as they return, they’re successful as well.

If they don’t like my water, they certainly like my syrup. Or perhaps I should say they are fickle about it. Some days they don’t touch it, and other days they can drink half a quart of 1:1 in a day. I’m not sure what causes them to binge on it, but we are so low on sugar in the house that I may not have enough for coffee in the morning. Now that’s something to panic about.

[Update] July 17, 2012: Half a quart of syrup gone in 24 hours. Now it was very hot today, and there was a strong breeze. I wonder if they mostly stayed inside the hive and thus used the syrup instead of foraging?