Yellow Jacket Attack, Part 2 with Photos!

8/22/07



Hi Everyone,



Last night I went out to the hive and the yellow jackets were being pretty aggressive. For the first time I saw the YJ's landing on the side of the hive box and trying to sneak into the gap between boxes made by the frame holder. I managed to get a somewhat blurry shot of that:










Though you can't see it in the photo, I could also see bee heads on the other side pushing back to keep the YJ's out. This concerned me so I put duct tape across the seam.






The actual entrance to the hive looked pretty good still. The bees were guarding the entrance and the vent hole and I didn't see any YJ's even come close to entering the hive:







Here is a shot of the YJ's coming in to check out the hive, I just thought it was a cool shot:







This last shot is a shot of a bee being attacked and eaten by a pack of YJ's. I think those two little dots are the bees eyes:





I put out some more yellow jacket traps, and as I mentioned I duct-taped the seam made by the frame holder. So far I haven't seen a YJ even coming close to entering the hive so hopefully the hive is okay.

Yellow Jacket attack!

8/19/07

Hi Everyone,



Wow, what an interesting weekend. On the advice from several people I made home made yellow jacket traps and put those out on Saturday. Not a single yellow jacket had been caught so far, perhaps my home made trap is not very appealing to the yellow jackets for some reason.



On Sunday the weather was nice so I came out to watch my hive for a while and was amazed. I got to watch the yellow jackets and bees fighting in front of me. I would see things like yellow jackets coming kind of near the hive, then a bee would come out and attack it and they would fall on the ground rolling around as they fought. Sometimes I would see a second and even a third yellow jacket join the fight. I also saw the bees forming a semi-circle in front of the entrance to the hive as a way to protect it better. It was really kind of amazing, but also alarming to see the yellow jackets so aggressively attacking the bees.



I went out and bought one of those commercial yellow jacket traps and in an hour it had already caught 8 yellow jackets. I think I'll pick up a couple more and put them in place as well.

We'll see how that goes.

Robbing or reaping?

This morning I had a little time before I needed to go to work so I decided to walk out and take a peek at the hive and see how the bees were doing. I saw something that I thought was odd, but I'm not sure if I should be concerned.

First some background:
My hive is sitting on a palette which is sitting on cinderblocks which are on the ground.
What I noticed were:

1) Bees sort of walking around on the ground by the hive. I only saw three and they didn't seem to be hurt, they were just kind of walking around.

2) I saw a few yellowjackets zipping around the hive. I watched pretty closely and never saw a yellowjacket enter the hive (or even really come all that close).

3) I think I saw a yellow jacket take off carrying a dead bee that it had found on the ground. I say I think because as I'm sure many of you know, trying to follow an insect in flight with your eyes can be very difficult so I only got a glance.

At first I thought it could be robbing, but when I never saw a yellowjacket entering the hive I thought perhaps that the yellowjackets were just scavening dead bees for food.

I didn't have much time to observe before I needed to head to work so I decided to put on an entrance reducer and I quickly taped pieces of window screen over the vent holes in the boxes.

I posted to the bee board to see if anyone has seen anything like this, and to see if my conclusions sound reasonable.

I am eager to see what people say.

Third box empty?

8/13/07



I checked my hive yesterday and I was hoping to see a third box that was well drawn out with honeycomb. In fact I was hoping that there might have been one frame of honey that I could take and harvest but I was disappointed.


When I opened the hive and checked the top box I saw numerous bees walking around in there, but the frames in the top box looked totally untouched. If seemed like the bees had cleaned the frames up a little but I didn't see even the earliest signs of the foundation being drawn out.


The weather the last few weeks has been spotty and I live in a suburban neighborhood so perhaps there just hasn't been the resources available to draw out the top box.


I posted to the bee exchange board wondering if I should start feeding again. It doesn't really matter if I get a lot of honey this year, but it would be great if I could harvest at least a little to see what the honey in my hive tastest like.

According to the replies on the bee exchange board the empty third box is not unusual. Apparently in this area most of the major nectar flows are over so the bees don't really have the resources for stockpiling, thus the empty box.

One person suggested I remove the third box, so I'm thinking that the next time I check the bees I'll do that. Since I plan to move the hive in the winter anyway it would be much easier to move two boxes instead of three, so that at least is a plus.

I am disappointed that I might not get any honey this year, but I've read that isn't uncommon and hopefully good choices made this year will result in a really good harvest next year.

Oh, and so I don't forget one person recommended I medicate my bees with Fumigil in the fall. I haven't even thought of medications yet.

-Paul

The third box.

Hi Everyone,



Well I put the third box on a while back and I was worried about the queen excluder. Mostly I was worried that the excluder was too small to let the worker bees through. I have been watching my hive over the last couple of weeks, specifically noticing that no bees were using the top box vent hole as an entrance or exit (they use the vent holes for the lower two boxes as entrances/exits constantly).


I was worried that maybe the bees weren't moving into the top box, so I decided that since I had a little more syrup that I had made earlier, that I would put the last of the syrup into the feeder as a way to draw the bees into the top box.


When I checked the feeder I discovered that there were quite a few worker bees walking around in there, so I think that the bees have actually moved into the third box just fine.

I wish I had left more time to actually check the top box, but I had to go, so I just refilled the feeder and closed the hive. This weekend I should have plenty of time and good weather to check the bees again. I am eager to see how the top box is coming along.

I might even check the top two boxes since I am curious to see how the second box is filling out.

So stay tuned, hopefully an update and pictures on Monday.

Research on honey extraction.

Hi Everyone,

Perhaps I'm being too optimisitc, but I've been researching honey extraction techniques in the hope that my hive will produce at least a little surplus honey.

It looks like there are essentially two ways for me to extract honey:

1) The crush and strain method. This is pretty much what it sounds like. You take the honeycomb, crush it up, and put it in a strainer. I found a great video of the process at:

http://beekeeperlinda.blogspot.com/2007/06/honey-harvest-crush-and-strain.html

Pros - Minimal equipment needed, easy to do.

Cons- You have to destroy the honeycomb (some people consider this a pro, since you can use the wax for candles, also some people think that it's more hygienic to use new honeycomb each year).

2) Mechanical extraction. For this you get your hands on a spinning extractor.

Pros - Preserves the honeycomb for next year, very easy and efficient.

Cons - You have to build, buy or borrow an extractor.

I don't want to buy an extractor, not sure I have time to build one, and I've decided to not bother to rent one from my beekeeping club (I think it'll be more fun to have a method where I can do my harvesting whenever).

So that leaves the crush and strain method. Not much in the way of equipment to gather, just a matter of getting the surplus honey. The weather has been great and the bees have been busy, so we'll see how things go.

-Paul

Three Boxes Strong

7/8/07

Hi Everyone,

Well a quick check of the hive yesterday showed my top box to be pretty full of drawn comb. Following the 70% rule I decided to put on a queen excluder and my third box.

I've stopped feeding the bees as the weather has been great so I think they're doing fine on their own. If I don't see much activity in the third box I may put some feed in the top feeder as a way to draw the bees up into the third box.

I also did a quick check of my brood box, and things there are looking pretty good. My frames have larvae again, and I saw no sign of queen cells. My wife was able to get a great shot of one of the brood frames where you can see the white larvae really clearly:

So far so good. Since the weather is getting warmer I have put out a couple of bee watering sources. One is a bucket filled with water and styrofoam peanuts (the idea being that the bees can land on the peanuts and drink the water), the other is a board that I have under a dripping outdoor spigot. So far I haven't seen bees drinking but I'm hoping to see that happening soon.

I'll probably check the hive again in a couple of weeks to see how the top box is doing. Maybe I'll actually get to harvest honey in the next month or so.