Two steps forward, one step back…

So, remember a couple posts back where I said we added a second brood box to hive 1? Well this past weekend during our inspection, we decided to backtrack and remove it. It had been in place for 4 days and there was absolutely no activity on it. Our strong hive (hive 2) already had 4 frames being drawn and eggs being laid in the same amount of time after adding the second brood box on it, so we knew something was wrong with hive 1.  Hive 1’s population is still very low, and although new brood should be hatching as we speak, we decided to go ahead and give it a boost by “stealing” 2 frames of capped brood from the strong hive and placing them in the weak hive, in an attempt to equalize the hives. We will keep monitoring the situation!

 

In another development, last night when I went to check on the feeder levels, I again noticed some small hive beetle larva swimming in the syrup! Yuck! Small hive beetles are becoming a problem in the southern US (and are making their way north).  Adult beetles lay eggs in the hive, and the larvae hatch and consume stored honey and pollen, making a huge mess as they eat and poop their way through a hive.  It can get so bad that the bees decide to abscond (abandon the hive). Apparently it is normal to have a low number of SHB in a hive, but if the bee population is small (such as when starting a new package of bees), the beetles can take over:

SHB larvae-infected comb. Image courtesy of James D. Ellis, University of Florida / © Bugwood.org / CC-BY-3.0-US

SHB larvae-infected comb. Image courtesy of James D. Ellis, University of Florida / © Bugwood.org / CC-BY-3.0-US

So…we made the impromptu decision to remove the hive top feeder right away, since it was giving the beetles a larger bee-free space to potentially lay eggs. To be honest, we were unhappy with the hive top feeders as they have led to way too much death-by-drowning for our girls. Rob even rigged one side up with piece of window screening to cover the floating platform holes, which helped some, but it was still not great.

Hive top feeder with floats, similar to the ones we have.

Hive top feeder with floats, similar to the ones we have.

The nectar flow is starting here in NC, so I have the sense that our bees are not consuming as much of the sugar syrup anyway, so hopefully they will not miss it much.  We did go low-tech on one of the hives and put on a “baggie feeder”, which is simply a gallon ziplock bag filled with syrup with a few razor slits made in the top plastic, which is placed directly on top of the frames, allowing the bees to drink from the slits:

 

Baggie feeder in place atop frames.

Baggie feeder in place atop frames.

So that is the current state of the hives.  We are having to do some troubleshooting and problem solving, but everything (even the bad stuff) is a learning experience!  Overall I feel we will be in good shape once the slacker hive 1 gets it’s population higher.

Thanks for reading!

E

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