I Get to See a "Flow Hive

    Saturday was a slow day at the Beez Neez, not uncommon in late October.  The highlight of the day was a visit from a customer who had purchased one of those fancy "Flow Hives" from Australia. He very thoughtfully brought it by the shop so I could have a look at it. He summarized it as terribly expensive and expressed skepticism that it would work long term. However, as he put it, "What good is a hobby if you can't fritter away money on it." Actually he used a different word besides fritter, but fritter conveys his meaning and is more appropriate for my intended audience.  Those of us who have long experience dealing with the insides of bee hives can easily imagine anything mechanical getting gummed up.  His point was that it seemed like a fun thing to try in spite of the fact that it was frightfully expensive.

"Flow Hive" interior

This cap is removed and replaced with a spigot.

It comes with a window on the side

The plastic comb visible through the window

    We spent some time examining the device together. It was fun to see it up close and figure out exactly how it is supposed to work. He let me take a few photos for the Beez Neez blog and Facebook. I offered some helpful suggestions, most of which had apparently been covered in the instructions which came with the flow hive.

   I have at least two other customers that I know of who have also purchased a flow hive.  I'm sure I will have lots of feed back from each of them by the end of this next honey season. I hope we have a good nectar flow this coming summer so they will have have the gratification of having it work well at least once.

   My observation hive in the front of the Beez Neez is still doing well.  I just installed them in early September so they have only been there for about seven weeks.  The queen had been installed in the nuc in mid August so they had a three week head start on becoming a bee hive before I transferred them into the observation hive. She had filled two frames with brood in that time.

Abigail the First resting with her entourage 

   I've named the queen "Abigail the First" after one of my grand daughters. I located the queen yesterday morning (October 24, 2015) as she was resting on some capped honey. A queen bee isn't as busy in October as she in in July.  The brood nest has been reduced so there is a limited demand on her capacity to lay eggs. That is especially true in this little observation hive which is the equivalent of a four frame nucleus hive.  It is like a part time job compared to the egg laying machine the queen needs to be in July. Although, even while resting this queen is fulfilling a very important function for the hive.  Her little entourage is collecting her pheromones for distribution throughout the hive. If  she were not present in the hive to provide queen pheromone it would only take a short time before every last worker bee realized the hive had become queenless.

   I didn't think to mark this queen as I wasn't planning to use this nuc hive in the observation hive at the time. I made it up.  Additionally, it doesn't hurt for people to learn to spot an unmarked queen. Anyone can spot a marked queen. What's the big challenge in that? Note how long her abdomen is compared to the worker bees around her. Also her wings only reach 2/3 the length of her abdomen. The top of her thorax is enlarged and shiny black. The top of a worker bee's thorax appears brownish-black because of all of the little brown hairs on it.  Most of the queens retinue in the photo above are upside down, but the two closest to her head are right side up. The difference in the color of the thorax is pretty obvious.  The fact that the bees tend to cluster in a circle around the queen makes it easier to spot the queen. Even when she is walking across a frame, the other bees tend to get out of her way. It is as if she had a herald proclaiming "Make way for the Queen!"  Experienced beekeepers spot the queen as much by how she behaves and how the other bees behave around her as by how she looks.

Observation Hive Update, Mid October 2015

    On my last post I mentioned how the bees in the observation hive have been drawing out comb on the lowest of their four deep frames.  I hadn't noticed any other activity on that lowest frame other than the bees storing some orange and yellow pollen and a little bit of nectar/sugar syrup.  I was gone for about four days over the weekend on a hunting trip to Eastern Washington. When I returned to the Beez Neez on Tuesday, October 20th, I discovered that Queen Abigail the First had begun to lay eggs  in that lowest frame.  Based on the fact that the bees had just started capping the larvae,  the queen started laying eggs on this frame nine days ago.  A worker honeybee is three days as an egg and six days as a larva.

The bees just started capping the larvae which means the first eggs were laid 9 days ago

Note the white larvae curled up in the cells at the top of this photo

     Honeybee eggs are very tiny and not particularly easy to spot, especially when the frame is fixed inside the observation hive such that I can't turn it to get the sun just right shining down into the bottom of the cells.  I keep the observation hive covered with 2 inch thick styrofoam insulation when someone isn't actively gawking at them. That helps the bees incubate the brood at 92 degrees Fahrenheit.  Since they are covered most of the day and I really don't have time to watch them all day long anyhow, I had missed the queen starting to lay in the lower frame.  The larvae grow at a tremendous rate.  The new larvae start out about a fifth the size of a grain of rice.  Six days later they are a full grown larvae ready to spin their cocoon.  Imagine growing something as small as a rabbit into the size of a rhinoceros in just six days.

     Now that the bees have expanded the brood nest downward, the bees will have a lot more incentive to finish drawing out the comb on that lower frame.  I noticed that they had made some progress on that lower frame while I was gone.  One side has gone from 70% drawn to about 85% drawn in just four days.  October is a difficult time to persuade the bees to draw out comb. They are normally starting to hunker down for winter in October.  They often are not even inclined to produce wax to cap the last honey they bring into the hive in the fall. I guess they generally use the LIFO inventory method when it comes to honey storage and usage, Last In, First Out. In this particular case, they need more comb and I have provided them with lots of sugar syrup they can use to produce wax. Over the past few weeks, these bees have also capped about half of their stored honey.  A month ago, just a few weeks after I had placed the bees into the observation hive, the frames were pretty full of honey, but very little of it was capped.

This honey has been capped within the past few weeks

    I have been watching the weather forecast pretty closely. I don't want to miss the arrival of our first cold snap. I need to make sure the bees are unable to leave the hive once the weather turns cold. We've had a fairly warm and dry October thus far.  I see a lot of foragers who aren't bringing back pollen so they must be finding some nectar some where. They are going through a quart of sugar syrup every three days.  I'm not sure how much of their stored honey is from nectar as opposed to the sugar syrup.   I would estimate their current honey reserves at about ten pounds. That probably wouldn't be enough if they were spending the winter outside in a nuc box. It is probably more than adequate for their circumstances.  These bees will have access to a sugar syrup feeder all winter long.

   I'm a little curious as to what they will do once the comb on the lower frame is completely drawn out.  There has been just a little comb building activity on the top frame.  Maybe the comb building activity will transfer to the top frame.   I have noticed a change of activity in the third frame from the bottom.  It appears that they are backfilling the empty cells with honey as the capped brood emerges.  The queen laying in the lower frame may constitute a transfer of laying activity to the lower frame as opposed to an increase in her laying.

Observation Hive Update, Early October, 2015

    It appears that the little observation hive in the front window of the Beez Neez is continuing to prosper.  The bees are continuing to build comb on the bottom frame, albeit somewhat slowly.  They have started storing pollen and nectar in that lower frame, but the queen hasn't chosen to lay there yet.  I thought I saw the very start of a little comb building activity on the top frame as well.

    Since I decided to try yet again to keep bees in the observation hive over the winter, I think I should give the queen a name. I don't believe I've named a queen bee after my grand daughter Abby yet, so I decided to christen this queen as Abigail the First.  This queen is unmarked in that I haven't put a dab of paint on the top of her thorax to make her easier to spot. Note the enlarged black thorax of the queen bee versus the thoraxes of the worker bees which are covered with fuzzy golden brown hairs. Also a worker bee's wings extend almost to the tip of her abdomen while the queen bee's wings only extend halfway down the abdomen. Experienced beekeepers learn to spot the queen as much by her behavior and that of the surrounding bees as by her appearance.  Often the bees will form a little cluster around the queen whenever she stops. Also they will often clear a path for her as she walks across a crowded  frame. It is almost like there is a herald bee crying out "Make way for the Queen!"

Abigail the First is the larger bee in the center of the photo

Capped honey on the left side of the photo, capped brood on the left

    The observation hive has a rotating base and is set up on top of two hive bodies on a rolling platform. That way the entire assembly can be taken outdoors for maintenance.  There is 1 1/2 inch plastic tubing that leads from the top hive body over to the feeding station and the exit out the top of the front window.  We replaced the top window with a piece of plywood with the exit hole.  Attached to the outside of the plywood is a front mounted pollen trap which functions as the landing pad for the bees. I removed the grid from the pollen trap so the bees can pass freely.

This honey was recently capped in late September

The tubing that allows the bees to access the feeder and the outside world

    I'm trying to keep constant feed available for the observation hive.  They are currently emptying a quart jar of sugar syrup in about three days. I'm hoping that the easy availability of syrup plus the warmer indoor temperature will encourage them to build comb on the two partially drawn frames. The observation hive consists of four deep frames stacked vertically. The middle two frames are 100% drawn comb, full of honey and brood. The top frame is partially drawn on one side( about 20% drawn) with nothing done on the second side. The bees are not using the top frame at present.   Instead they are focusing on finishing the bottom frame, which is currently 70% finished on one side and about 50% finished on the other side.

A worker bee coming in for a landing

     Note the observation hive is visible through the front window.  I keep the glass covered with styrofoam insulation when I am not looking at the bees.  That makes it easier for them to incubate their brood at the right temperature.  It is 70 degrees inside the store, but the brood are incubated at 92 degrees.  1 like to make it a little easier on the bees. Besides, if the brood are not kept at 92 degrees the newly emerged worker bees may actually have learning disabilities.  We would rather not have slow learner bees.