Poppy Flowers in Bloom

Last Saturday, 10th July, I dedicated my whole day to weeding my garden plot and when I got to the gardens I noticed Poppy flowers were in full bloom. It was beautiful. I also heard buzzing noises coming from the flowers and saw that my honey bees were buzzing all over them. I read before that bees could not see red and were not attracted to red flowers but poppies although have bright red petals have yellow/white pollen stamens and yellow ovules which are color spectrum that bees can see. The purple design on the poppy is also another color spectrum that attracts them. This variety of poppy below has similar characteristics to the Afghan Poppies.

I noticed that when the sun is at zenith, it is the best time to take pictures. Positioning yourself to capture the shot is easier as you don't cast a shadow on the subject, the subject of the photo comes out very clear and it is also easier for the camera to focus.

Above there are 2 bees working in this flower. If you were a bee, wouldn't it be fun playing in this deep flower with lots of sweet poppy nectar.

Bee: Should I go home or visit another flower?

Bee: Another Flower!!!  This is an Oriental Poppy above.

Hope you enjoyed the photos.

1st Official Hive Inspection and creating a Nuc

On Sunday July 4th, Jacquie Bunse, the Bee Inspector from the Ministry of Agriculture of BC visited my hive for a hive inspection. I was delighted to have her over to be my mentor for the day and it was great to be able to ask all the questions I had about my hives. Jacquie has been a beekeeper for almost over 20years now and she was so willing to share as much knowledge she possibly could. Even after driving from Mt Currie in Pemberton to check on an apiary before coming to my apiary in Coquitlam, she seemed full of energy. She amazed me from the get go. She was not wearing gloves while going through my frames! I told her my bees can get aggressive especially that Sunday when the clouds were hanging low and it has been cool all day. I have been afraid of not wearing gloves for almost a year now. Getting stung on the fingers is really painful. The last time I got stung on my fingers was on my thumb and the next day it swelled so much that it feels like the skin around the thumb is going to explode. Since then, I have been using latex gloves that are thick enough to not allow the bee stings to penetrate the material. I was skeptical that she would not get stung and she did not. Well, she pointed out why my bees were aggressive towards me. She noticed I pulled the frames out too fast and it causes the bees on the other side of the frame not facing me to roll over and fall to the screened bottom. When they fall, they get agitated and start butting heads with me and try to sting wherever they can. So the trick was to take 1 or 2 frames out and lay it on the side of the hive to have more space while bringing out each frame and then pull out the other frames....SLOWLY! Since then, my last 2 inspections since July 4th, I have mustered the courage to not wear gloves. It was such a different experience beekeeping w/o gloves. I could feel the bees licking and crawling over my fingers,less of them got squashed and I felt more connected. I finally got to experience that my bees are really friendly and inviting as long as I had presence of mind while working with them. I owe this better experience of beekeeping to Jacquie. Thanks alot!

She thought me how to create a Nucleus hive which I used the replacement queen that Bob gave me, which by the way was a virgin queen that died in the cage when I checked again on July 6th. Probably because Bob did not add any attendant bees in the cage. I was expecting the virgin queen to die somehow as I knew not having attendants of her own, she would starve. Anyway, we created a 3 frame Nuc. We picked out a frame with honey and pollen stores on both sides, second frame with brood in all stages (some capped and some open brood)
 


and last frame with more brood and store. All the adhering bees on the frames were transferred over and we were looking out for frames that had mostly nurse bees.







Picked out another 2 more frames of nurse bees and shaked them on to the nuc box.

Thats a complete 3 frame nuc.

At the end of the hive inspection, no European Foul Brood or American Foul Brood was found. So the result is a positive :) My hives are healthy and is in good shape to receive their new queens. And I ended up with one more hive :)

Requeening Matilda Failed

The queen I bought yesterday has died. She died from suffocation on the candy. There was too much candy in the cage. She 1st got stuck half an hour after picking her up but she freed herself. The picture taken yesterday shows she was alright. At 630am, when I checked the queen cage, she was stuck. I was hoping that she would free herself again later. Every hour I checked. I had such a narrow view of her through the cage as her attendants were blocking and she never moved or struggle. When I got to the gardens, I had to investigate rather than wait 3 days till the bees eat the candy barrier to release her. I cut the cage open and found her head was covered with candy that has hardened. I tried reviving her by cleaning the candy off using Saline solution but it did not work. I'm at a lost right now. I'm too frustrated to go back to Bob and get back my $25. When I called him to tell him about the status of the queen, he blamed me for my handling. I really don't care what he says. Its as if I wanted to kill the queen. Matilda is now queenless. Will probably have to combine the hive soon and that would have to be done by Sunday. Absolutely dissapointed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My resolve is now stronger to be self sufficient in rearing my own queens next year.

The Queen has arrived

Just like the Queen of England who is in Canada now for Canada Day, my queen has arrived from West Coast Bee Supplies. What a day. I've been calling Bob about a month ago asking for queens. I think I've bugged him over the week several times checking if he was ready to sell me one. So finally on Tuesday when I called, he said he's got some. I made arrangements to reserve a queen and to pick it up today 1st July. I was excited. Finally I could see the light at the end of the tunnel with the drone laying queen problem I've had for the past 2 months. Can you imagine, Matilda has been with a drone laying queen for 2 mths and on Tuesday when I checked, they kicked her out, I hope, since I'm introducing a new queen. Well there can be more messy problems in the hive and mine aint' that bad. Nao who I met coincidentally at West Coast Bee Store was telling me she had her 2nd swarm. Thats what I call a messy problem. Glad that she managed to catch her swarm again. I'm most afraid now of a laying worker or worst several of them in Matilda.

I made all this arrangement to get to No.6 Rd in Richmond. Booked the Car Co-Op vehicle for several hrs and prepared the hive for the royal welcome. When I walked into the store, Bob was telling Nao how he found this 'dead' queen outside. When Nao left, I told Bob I was here to pick up the queen, he said he was sold out.... I lost my temper! My heart sank, time and money wasted. Frustrated, I dropped a few F bombs. He is clearly unreliable! As I was desperate for a queen. He said I could have the 'dead' one. She looked weak but mostly chilled as she was probably in the open for so long. I was put on a spot to decide and take a risk of buying a 'dead' queen. I agreed on buying her as long he guarantees that she is mated. So off he goes to collect some worker bees as her attendant. I observed he was taking foragers. He was catching bees that were at the entrance of the hive. A good beekeeping outfit selling queens will show you the mated queen laying and take nurse bees as her attendant. Nurse bees are preferred as they are young and are able to feed the queen with royal jelly and will be able to nourish the queen while she travels in the queen cage. Whereas Foragers are old bees and do not produce anymore royal jelly coz of its low in Vittelogen levels (Oliver. R, Scientific Beekeeping).

Its been about 12hrs since I picked up the new queen. Covered the queen cage with a damp paper towel and stored the cage in my jacket closet in a pocket of a jacket to keep the queen warm. She is active and all the attendants are doing well. They seemed bloated with water. But I think that should be alright. Will be installing the queen Friday evening after work.

This queen cage above is a slow-release method for introducing the queen into Matilda. It is a recommended method so that the hive can get used to the new queen's pheromone and the queen is protected from possible assassination by the  the laying worker or other workers. Jackie Bunns have recommended that I place the queen cage next to open brood which I will be transferring from Bombay. I think the pheromones from the larvae will also suppress any workers from assuming the role of laying eggs and also the queen would spread her pheromones through the nurse bees to the larvae causing the hive to accept her. One way to tell if u have laying worker is the drones that emerge are smaller in size than normal drones but will still be sexually viable. In the picture, I"m holding the tip of the cage that contains candy. The candy acts like a barrier to protect the queen and for the host bees to eat through the candy to release the queen. Approximately 6 days to release. The queen will be hungry enough by then to solicit food from the workers and spread more of her pheromone.


Vancouver clearly has a shortage of reliable bee suppliers. At this time, I would only recommend Honeyland Canada at Pitt Meadows runned by Dr Bee for my beekeeping needs.

My 1st Beekeeping Club Meeting and a little bit about Chalkbrood.

Yesterday, I attended my 1st club meeting with the Richmond Beekeeper's Association. It started at 1pm but I only got there at 1.40pm. I got a little lost in UBC Campus. I asked the bus driver of the C20 bus if his route goes to UBC farm, he said yes but he dropped me in front of the Totem Pole park. I got directions from the friendly staff at the Botanical Gardens and relied on my Blackberry Google maps to walk to UBC farm. It was a 20min walk on a beautiful sunny day. On route to UBC Farms, I noticed that UBC seeds their lawn with white clover and its everywhere. I was walking downwind and the sweet scent of the clover filled the air. And I was thinking, the bees Allen Garr keeps in UBC has excellent forage in clover.

Meeting other beekeepers is always a comforting feeling. I don't feel I'm alone and I can share what is going on in my hive and I get to hear what is going on in the hive of others. It is always nice to learn from others. Especially, when I had problems identifying problems such American/European Foulbrood, Chalkbrood or Apis Ceranae. I was never sure if I had any of these problems. Yesterday, Allen showed me what chalkbrood looked like. I always thought those dried up larvae was just one of those larvae among the thousand other larvae that was forgotten to be fed by the nurse bees and dried up. Chalkbrood is actually a fungi that is present in the brood frames. This is what I found out about chalkbrood.

The spores of Ascosphaera apis are ingested with the brood food as the larva feeds itself. The germination of the spores and proliferation of the fungus, breaks out of the larva and covers it with a white mycelium.
Spores of Ascosphaera apis remain viable for years. Consequently, the infection source could
be present in the cells used to rear brood. Chalkbrood appears to be most prevalent in the
spring when the brood area is expanding, and the weather is cool and unsettled. Generally,
the disease is found in those areas of the brood nest where sufficient nurse bees are
unavailable to maintain the brood nest temperature.
Chalkbrood normally does not destroy a colony. However, it can prevent normal population
build-up when the disease is serious. No treatment is presently available for the control of
chalkbrood. In severe cases, re-queening is helpful, as well as the addition of sealed brood to
the weakened colony. The disease usually disappears or is reduced as the air temperature
increases in the summer, and pollen and nectar flows begin. (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, n.d.)

The white looking chalk is a larvae that has been affected by a fungus that dries it up.Click the picture for a closer look.

I will write more about how I manage health in the hive in the next few postings.


We had someone speak about Beekeeping Safety. Never knew that roll on deodarant actually helps in taking away the pain in bee stings. Interesting. Will try rolling on some deodorant on the sting spot the next time I get stung. Spot heating also helps. She said that heat actually deteoriates and breaks down the bee venom in the sting.  Here are some pictures at the bee club meeting and completing the frame making "competition". I had good fun yesterday.

References

Vermont Agency of Agriculture: Plant Industry Division (n.d). Chalkbrood Disease. Retrieved from : http://www.vermontagriculture.com/ARMES/plantindustry/apiary/documents/Chalkbrood07rev.pdf

Field Day at UBC Farm

At the Trout Lake Farmer's Market two weeks ago, Richmond Beekeeping Club had a booth. I signed up to join the club. Its $20 for the year and I get to be part of the email list. Really looking forward to the 1st meeting at UBC Farm on Saturday for their field day and to mingle with other beekeepers. I love operating and figuring things out on my own. But sometimes, like now, when I am feeling lost and hopeful about Matilda, being in a group of more experienced beekeepers will ground me and help me accept some failures. Don't get me wrong, I don't feel bad about failing. I'm glad I fail at times coz those are times when my rough edges gets sharpened and I learn the most. Making mistakes and being able to manage better is what prevents comments such as what my friend would say to his young brother,"You are only a green horn, what do you know?"..haha...Beekeeping is challenging, it keeps my mind fully occupied and that is what I don't get in the office. Thank you, my lovely bees for challenging me, you teach me how to understand my own world and you hold my interests tight on the misunderstandings of nature and you know how to reward me.

Matilda- The Unfertilized Queen

On 6th June, I did a full inspection on Matilda and Bombay. The weather was cloudy and was threatening to rain when I started. The clouds were hanging low and from the high point at the beeyard, I could see the rain moving towards the east from Metrotown area. I guessed I had at least 45mins before it rained in my area. This is the worst type of day to check the hive. I started the fire and my fuel today was dried grass from the lawn mowings. Dried grass by far is the best fuel i've used so far. I've always used dried leaves and I never stuff my smoker full of fuel. After completing one hive, there will be no more smoke and I have to relight the smoker again for the next hive. Nowadays I don't need to relight my smoker as long I refresh the smoker with a few hard squeeze on the bellows every 10mins. Today,the foragers (high on adrenalin) are all panicky and short tempered on such a weather. It is just like confining race horses in their starting stalls for days. When a forager cannot fly because of the bad weather, its duty is to secure the hive from any sort of disturbance. So the moment I opened up the hive, the angry bees were flying into my face. I could hear the thuds on my face screen when they try to head butt into me.

Matilda- I spotted the 'useless' queen on frame 5 in the brood chamber. She is still laying drone brood. I am keeping her around till the new queen I ordered from Honeyland Canada is ready. Also her queen pheromone will keep the other ladies in line and to prevent a worker from laying. As all female bees have ovaries, a chosen worker bee will take on the role to lay unfertilized eggs. Once a worker starts laying, it is going to be really difficult to locate which is the laying worker and the new queen introduced would most likely be killed. The last resort if something like that occurs is to combine Matilda and Bombay. The honey storage were mostly in the super on frame 3-7. All the foundations are filled with wax except for frame 1&10 in the super. The green drone has only 1/4 filled with wax. I sugar dusted but did not count for mites.

Bombay- The queen was spotted on frame 4 in the brood chamber. With the Bombay queen, she allows me to sleep well at night. Again, she has not failed in showing me an excellent egg laying pattern. Even after transferring 2 frames of capped brood to Matilda about 2 weeks ago, there were 6 frames of brood today. I transferred another 2 frames of capped brood to Matilda. Hopefully this is the last transfer of capped broods. Last week on May 30th, I gave Bombay a pollen patty and it was gone on the 3rd or 4th day. The fastest I've ever seen them devour a pollen patty. Most likely coz of the high volume of brood rearing. What shocked me was there was hardly any honey left in the super. Last week, I had 8 frames of honey and 6 were already capped. But due to the long rainy period we had in Vancouver since April, the foraging time has been so short and the bees have consumed all of the honey. The rain has also caused alot of flowers to rot as they bloomed to early during the short sunny periods. The rain is also probably why Matilda's queen could not have a succesful mating flight. I will be making sugar syrup for them when I next visit. The weatherman has been so inaccurate in Vancouver. The next day's forecast can be sunny and then changed to rain forecast on the day itself and I think its one of the only jobs where you can make so many mistakes and blame nature. Lastly, before I closed up Bombay, they got sugar dusted. Did not count for mite levels as it started raining.

Flowers in Bloom around the gardens: Himalayan Blackberries, Chives, Sage, Salvia, Dandelions, Kale, Foxglove, Red Poppy, Lupin, Dogwood, Beauty Bush, Mock Orange (Philadelphus), late Rhododendrons, Sweet/Snow Peas, Spiraea, Tree Peony (Rose like), Delphinium