Rough Cut & Honey Is A-Flowin'!

So the day after the Dustructor maelstrom, I readied my homemade slatted rack for Boris, and Imrie shim for Natasha if I made it that far. I had to take my lunch at the end of the day from work, scoot on home, suit up and do what I could before the sun got too low. I'd also done some extra research on gentle inspections and keeping calm bees. I'd done enough to anger them, I figured. I also changed the way I used smoke: I start my smoker well before I go to the apiary, so the smoke is cool. And, I give a few puffs and GIVE THEM TIME to go down into the hive and fill their bellies with honey, calming them down.

_I suspected I was too late and Boris had already swarmed, even with the 7 frames I'd taken away a couple weeks ago to make two splits off my original hive. I was ecstatic to be greeted by lots of busy bees in the shallow honey super. Even more-so to see fresh comb had been drawn out! The question was, how well on the empty foundationless frames?

WONDERFULLY! They were really drawing out their fresh comb. Half of the super's frames were empty two weeks ago. Amazing how fast they not only draw it out but fill it with honey. You can see they're already capping. This frame was heavy, and attached now on all four sides of the frame.

More progress on this frame. Their comb was still somewhat divided. Previously I'd twisted the left pieces more center, and it looks like that worked. They're still overlapping. But a lot of this is good. I gently pushed in the center piece to better touch the big piece at left. When going foundationless you've got to keep an eye on their progress until they draw out straight comb. I'm hopeful this one will work out. If not, I'll extract this using the crush 'n strain method and harvest the wax. All good no matter what. :-)

Half-way in and no more swarm cells. I moved slowly and kept remembering "gentle, gentle." I'd started my inspection by removing the second frame and putting it in the work box. This gives me extra room to slide over the adjacent frames, lift them out without rolling the bees and put them back in easily. And when I put in that next-to-last frame when I'm done, the bees won't get crushed against the wall of the super, but nestled in-between soft comb. This frame was beautifully drawn and the queen is laying lots up here.

_Lots of good drone on this frame, in a tight pattern. As the season progresses, this'll hatch out and I'm hopeful they'll fill the empty frame in the super with honey. I'm not using an excluder. I believe in not restricting the queen's movements. If she needs room, I'll give it to her. I was jazzed to see they still hadn't finished drawing this to the bottom and she'd been laying up a storm.

A gorgeous honey frame, quite heavy. I am ecstatic I'll be getting SOME honey this season. It was so white and translucent. I can't wait for early spring honey. What a treasure! This is a foundation frame. Check out how the honey's been capped in a horizontal line.

My favorite frame so far. Pure foundationless and totally chock full of nectar and capped honey. Compare this to the previous shot, which was a foundation frame. The honey is capped in a more natural wedge shape, even though this comb is being drawn on a rectangular frame. This one still has a ways to go to be drawn out but the natural-sized cells are much smaller. Bigger isn't always better. The smaller cells means more places to store honey. Sure it's smaller, but I've read that they can put more honey and brood in the smaller sized cells.

_Also, the small cells in natural comb make a big difference in keeping the Varroa Destructor mites at bay. They can't reproduce as quickly or as often in the smaller cells. Chemical-free, baby! And happier bees, naturally.

Okay, now THIS is my favorite frame so far. Another gorgeous foundationless frame. This all-natural way is WORKING! The proof is in the honey. :-)

The new frames have been heavily worked. You can tell just be looking in-between the frames. I decided to GENTLY smoke the top box from a couple feet away, lid it with an extra inner screen, move it to my work wagon, and go down to the bottom box. I needed to install that slatted rack, and this top hive body was where 4 of 7 frames had been taken for the splits two weeks ago. I will harvest that honey frame from the bottom hive body.

Time to work my way downstairs. No swarm cells in the shallow super or top hive body. I needed to check on the empty frames I'd put in for the brood nest in the bottom hive body. I harvested a single honey frame from the bottom hive body and moved the adjacent frames over to the side. I then put another empty frame in the #3 slot, which opened up the brood nest again. They'll draw it out in the next week or two, and the queen has room to lay another 8,400 or so eggs on natural-drawn comb. Keep 'em busy and give HRH tons of room to lay, and I think I just might convince Boris to not swarm but make a lot of precious honey and wax.

In the bottom brood chamber, one of the empty foundationless frames I'd put in just two weeks ago. Remember how well they've drawn out the empty frames in two weeks on the super? That's nothing compared to this! Almost completely drawn and touching on all four sides (they just attached to the bottom, off-center to the left. You can see them working on it in this shot. Lots of worker larvae in this one, so the queen was here in the last 4-8 days.

_The cells will be capped on day 9 and then they'll emerge a day or 3 later. I put in this empty frame just 15 days ago on March 11. IT'S WORKING! The empty frames are being drawn super fast and then queen is laying. Since the larvae has been there for up to a week, that means they drew this one out PRONTO in a matter of days, putting lots of nurses to work, with the queen happily laying in the opened-up brood nest.

I harvested a single frame from the side of the bottom hive body. In goes a fresh, empty frame. I'm going to keep them working on brood comb, honey comb, and not thinking about making swarm cells. Note the starter strip is simply the wedge I popped off and nailed vertically.

The honey frame. I will freeze this for a day to ensure there are no wax moth or SHB larvae in there, and later I'll uncap and extract the nectar and honey. I'll give that back to the bees, and will have empty combs for backup. I may use some empty combs to give my nucs a jumpstart in building a big hive in the fall. In the meantime I'll use a comb or two for putting in a bait hive to catch a swarm or two. AND, I'll have some empty comb for swarm prevention next spring. Always think ahead is what I've learned so far. :-)

I was amazed at the difference my changes in conducting a gentle inspection makes. I installed my nifty 9-frame slatted rack, and loved how it looked. They seemed happy with it. I think they love the smell of rough-cut cedar, too!

Having outfitted and inspected Boris on Monday, with no swarm cells in sight, I did the same for Natasha on Tuesday. The gentle smoke and extra time make a huge difference. I was ecstatic to see this honey super, and all the new foundationless comb she's built in the week since I last inspected.

One gorgeous foundationless frame. I love how they're working in groups. You can see some bees gathering in the middle and have started adjoining the two pieces in the middle. All of Natasha's shallow super frames were filled with spring nectar and capped honey. I'll need to soon make super #2!

And another gorgeous foundationless frame. YES!

OMG, this one's a real beaut! Way to go hive Natasha! All of her fresh foundation is being drawn straight up and down.

The frame on the furthest end, also being drawn down in several groups.

And the last end frame on the opposite end. Three of five frames in the super have been virtually fully drawn and filled with nectar in a short time. And no swarm cells in the super! That cell I saw on my previous blog post must've been a practice cell. I've heard that Russian bees like to build them, just in case and to stay in practice. Seems to be true. Still I take it as a sign to give them more room in the brood nest. Natasha is now my largest hive since the splits off of Boris.

Now this is an interesting frame from the top brood chamber. A large honeyband at top, and some drone cells. But notice it's a foundation frame from last year and still not fully drawn.

A great honey frame from the #2 position, but still not 100% drawn out, though it's at like 98% drawn (there's still undrawn cells along the bottom). Lots of fresh nectar and honey caps. Natasha was getting louder and angrier, as all of her foragers were coming in for the night. I still thought "gentle," used cool smoke and slow controlled motions. I must say that squatting and using my legs to lift these heavy boxes makes ALL THE DIFFERENCE. It saves my back, and so not hurting I stay calm. When I'm working the bottom box I also kneel if I get tired of squatting. Makes a big difference.

I wanted to harvest a single honey frame from one of the deep brood boxes of Natasha and also replace that with an empty frame. This hive is going strong. I was using gentle cool puffs of smoke from a couple feet away, extra inner screens on each box that I removed, slow controlled motions and gentle thoughts. Still, I started getting popped from angry guards. And I needed to get into this bottom hive body of Natasha's for the first time this year. All frames were heavily propolized. The bees were angry with me since sundown was closer and it was cooler than on Monday, about 63 degrees and falling fast.

All hell broke loose when I tried to move the bottom brood box off the slatted rack I'd made. The rack AND bottom board all came up with the hive body; they'd already propolized it in just a week. I slowly returned the hive body, rack and bottom board to its place on the hive stand, apologized to a lot of kamakaze guards hitting me, took deep breaths, pried everything loose and finally separated the brood box from the slatted rack. I got stung through my gloves once, and then again on my right ankle. Then another on my ankle. And then another. It was time to tighten up that boot band! I really need to get some taller boots. I was pleased that I remained calm. I collected my 5th sting of the year, all through protective clothing. _Then I put on the extra Imrie shim I made from my brother's free cedar wood (thanks, Dan, I want more!) so that the slatted rack has a proper 2 inches of extra space for the bees to hang out on, between the bottom of the frames and the bottom board. This also opens up the bottoms for the queen to lay in. The drafts from outside and congested traffic from foragers coming and going on the bottom board will convince the queen to not lay along the bottom of the frames. The slatted rack gives her extra space as well and diverts a lot of nurse bees. So in addition to harvesting the honey frame, I also opened up Natasha a bit with the slatted rack. Just like IPM, I'm thinking a combination approach to swarm prevention is key. Fingers crossed, knock on rough-cut wood!

_I peered underneath all boxes, tipping them up and looking from underneath. NO SWARM CELLS! I was quite happy. And my stings weren't really bothering me. I must be getting used to this. Glad I had protective clothing, though. She still seems the angrier of the two hives, but look, not a huge amount of bees out front compared to "Dustructor Sunday." I still think the time of day, though, makes a huge difference, and I had to do this at the end of the day. I don't blame Natasha ... at least not yet. If she keeps being angry, though, I'll re-queen her come Autumn.

__You can see my work box in the background. You need at least one of these for your inspections. You won't regret it. I also put an extra outer cover in my wagon, which has a little shelf on it. The extra outer cover goes down just a bit in the wagon, making a second wagon shelf. I can fit two hive bodies on my wagon. And, since it's close to waist height it really saves my back. For the first time I'm not killing my back working the bees. Thanks to Gerry Mack for this tip. It really works (that and using your legs to lift).

I put my harvested honey frame off to the side. I brushed the bees back into the honey super. I should've brushed all of them off. A few will fly back on. Usually, after the brush-off, I place the frame off to the side and come back an hour or two later to find it bee-free. This time, though, this group of bees stayed on the frame all night long. Sorry girls. I even put it beside Natasha's entrance, but they weren't budging. This morning, while temperatures were 48F, I knocked the slow moving bees onto the hive stand and took the treasure inside to the freezer.

This latest honey frame was put in last summer. It was a foundation frame and also wasn't completely drawn on both sides. I'd lifted up one foundationless frame from the brood box to find it mostly drawn out in two weeks. I am now convinced that the bees draw out foundation slower than making their own comb. I am definitely switching over bit by bit to foundationless. I'll use the harvested frames for backups and bait hives, and probably cut a few out and melt down the wax for candles. All in all a very successful inspection and past couple of weeks. I think an early spring honey harvest isn't that far away. I'm quite excited! Next up, more sugar dusting and I've got to check out those nucs in a week, about the 23rd day after the split, to see if queens have hatched, matured, mated and are laying. Then I'll have them for backups, or an apiary increase, or for selling.