Fresh eggs!

New eggs! There is one just above the tip of the pin. Once you see it, you can see them in adjacent cells too.

Opened up the hive today for a peek--it has been two weeks since the merge, and I wanted to check on the progress of the new queen. Throughout the hive there is evidence of new comb--more upstairs than downstairs. In one of the upstairs frames, there was a wild piece of double thick burr comb that I removed with my hive tool. Upon taking it inside, I was able to look more closely and see that there were new eggs in there! There was one little egg exactly at the bottom apex of each cell (perfect formation). This is evidence that the new queen has been laying! Delight!! I hope she will not miss these few that I accidentally stole, and that I didn't disturb her while cleaning up in the hive. Downstairs there is also uncapped brood, which is great news. I didn't see eggs in the frames, but I had a tough time looking through my veil and there were huge numbers of bees roaming over the frames. Today was my steamiest inspection yet--90 degrees and sunny, wearing jeans and the bee suit, smoker in tow, and lifting out some very heavy frames loaded up with honey. Who knew that beekeeping was such a good workout?


Directions from Joe were to add a honey super once all 20 frames have been drawn out. There are still at least a half dozen frames that need more comb, so I'll give the hive two more weeks before my next inspection. Opening up the hive is disruptive to the workers, and it is best not to do it more than is necessary--imagine each room of your 20-room house being picked up into the air and inspected by a giant, one at a time. Unnerving, even without the occasional bee squish.

One week after the merge...

Boardman feeder and newspaper bits

The bees have been quite busy all week, and have been dragging out newspaper bits, just as Joe promised they would. They have been consuming a full mason jar of sugar water a day--so Ted has taken to buying sugar in bulk to keep up. The weather has also continued to be too hot (for myself and the bees), near 90 every day, so there has been a lot of bearding outside the hive.

I opened up the hive this morning to see how things were doing since the merge. Upstairs there is still plenty of capped drone brood waiting to emerge (they take 24 days to develop from an egg), and evidence of new comb. Downstairs, there was worker brood on the wooden frames from Joe, and larvae. I didn’t see any eggs, or young brood, which was a little disappointing, but Joe says to give the new queen a bit more time to get settled and to let the workers generate more good comb for her to lay in.  I will wait at least a week, or perhaps two, before the next inspection and keep my fingers crossed for new Carnolian eggs.

Carnolian worker brood and larvae on the wooden frames from Joe 

A New Beginning :)

Joe from Crystal came by the house a few weeks ago and indeed confirmed that I had no laying queen in the hive, and that there was no evidence of a virgin queen either. Though I still had plenty of bees in the hive, without a new queen, or any brood in the hive, they would slowly die off. So begins operation requeen. If there are young brood in a queenless hive, it is possible to introduce a queen in a cage (like when my first queen arrived), and let her emerge over a few days. The young gentle bees will take care of her, and she will start to lay. However, in the case of a queenless hive with no brood, like mine, introduction of a queen on her own is not likely the be successful. The old bees, who have been on their own for some time, will not take care of the queen, and may kill her. In this case, it is necessary to introduce brood and young bees at the same time as introducing a new queen. This is typically done with the addition of a nucleus, or as the beekeepers say, a nuc. A nucleus is typically 5 frames of bees, with young nurse bees, brood, and a queen. 

Joe of Crystal Bee Supply setting up the paper merge

Joe had been planning to bring over his nuc for several weeks, however the weather here has been quite hot for some time. When the weather is hot, the bees tend to hang out outside of the hive (called bearding), even over night, which makes it impossible for Joe to close up the hive and transport the bees to me. Last weekend I took my second hive body over to his shop with five empty frames, so that he could put the nuc frames into my furniture. After several reschedules due to hot weather, Joe finally was able to make it over to my house this morning to combine his nuc of Carnolian bees, to my old Italian bee hive. To ensure a friendly merge, a piece of newspaper was placed between the hive bodies--this way the bees have to eat through the paper before the hives are one. This gives a few days for the new queens pheromones to spread throughout the hive.

Drone brood--evidence of laying workers in my hive

Shaking out my bees to eliminate laying workers

Once the Carnolian bees were happily installed downstairs (we also put the hive on cinderblocks to lower the hive a bit--so that should we be so lucky enough to install honey supers later in the summer I won’t need a ladder), on went the newspaper and my hive body on top. As we started to look through my frames, it became clear that in the weeks since my original queen disappeared, some of my workers had started to lay eggs. Since these eggs are not fertilized, they can only develop into drone bees. Drone pupae are super big, and lead to bumpy capped brood. Joe was not thrilled about keeping the laying workers in the hive for the paper merge, as they apparently can cause trouble. So Joe proceeded to shake each and every single one of my frames of bees into my outer cover (there were at least 10,000 bees on those frames), and dumped the bees into a heap near the hive entrance. Joe says that all of the normal worker bees will be able to go back into the hive, but that the laying worker is so rotund and heavy from laying that she won’t be able make the journey. It is impossible for me to imagine this, but I am taking Joe’s word for it.

My bees headed back to meet the new Carnolian bees

To help the bees back into the hive, Joe suggested we use a twig next to the hive entrance. He said that bees are lazy, and take the easiest route. Within minutes, there was a bee highway into the hive. Amazing. My concerns are that the laying worker might take the highway, or that my Italians might be mean to the new queen as they enter the lower brood box, but Joe assures me that this is the best option. I also received strict orders to continue to feed the bees sugar water until all 20 frames are drawn out with comb, so I set up a Boardman feeder with a mason jar. This is much easier to monitor and refill than the frame feeder I used at the beginning of the season. Next inspection will be in one week.

Day 54: Still no new eggs...

Opened up the hive today, and sadly there are still no new eggs. There are plenty of bees, comb, honey, and pollen, but not a single egg. One thing that can happen once the queen has been gone for some time is that the worker bees start to lay eggs. These eggs are unfertilized, and can only develop into drone bees. These eggs are laid in a spotty pattern, often several at a time in one cell, and not at the bottom of the cell (since the workers have shorter abdomen, as compared to the queen). I haven't seen any of these types of eggs either, so there still is the possibility that there is a new queen inside the hive who has yet to start laying (either because she has not mated, or she isn't very strong).

Clusters of worker eggs

Relative sizes and abdomen lengths of bee castes

Last weekend I reached out to a local bee shop in my area, Crystal Bee Supply, about what to do about my eggless situation. They suggested that I wait out another week to give the virgin queen time to mate and start laying--with the wet weather we have had, they said it could take at least 3 weeks. If I were to install a new queen with one or two virgin queens in the hive, they would kill the new queen. They said that it would not be prudent to requeen until I was sure that there were no virgin or newly-mated queens in the hive, which requires an extremely thorough inspection by an experienced beekeeper.


The folks at Crystal volunteered to come and do a house call this week at my hive to see what is going on either on Monday or Tuesday, since they are just down the road. Amazing! I cannot wait to have some professionals give me their opinion as to what should be done next. Stay tuned.

Beecam installation & empty queen cells

Beecam set up, showcasing southeast-facing hive

Tech support and beekeeper extraordinaire, Ted

Despite the turmoil that has been transpiring in the hive this last week, I went ahead with my dream to acquire a beecam to watch the comings and goings of the hive during the week. On work days I leave the house while the bees are hidden inside the hive, and return home when they are again hidden inside the hive. The weekends come and I get to see just how active the colony is during the day. Ted graciously selected an appropriate outdoor worthy-camera, extended our wireless network out into the yard, hooked up the camera, and provided a web location for the live feed to reside for your enjoyment, tedfoss.com. The software that runs the camera requires a log in (mindthebuzz) and password (mindthebuzz1), and then you must click on the tab that says “single” to view the feed. You can change the resolution of the image, as well as several other parameters from the webpage to suit. Please let me know if you have any trouble logging in.

Screenshot from the beecam, showing second broodbox

Development timeline for a worker bee from a fertile egg

Shown is a screenshot of the hive today--what a delight! If you are lucky when tuning in, you may also see birds, bunnies, or beekeepers in the beecam from time to time. We have also decided to rotate the hive 90 degrees to face southeast (the bees clearly seem to prefer this angle, as they were only using the southeast side of the entrance in the previous orientation), which additionally facilitates better viewing with the camera.

I opened up the hive today and was happy to see that the queen cells from last week are now empty, and the hive was bustling. If we are lucky there is one new suitable queen who will be able to mate and start laying eggs ASAP, before the hive population starts to drop. I didn’t see any new eggs yet, but I also didn’t see any evidence of worker bees laying infertile eggs either, which is good. Most of the old brood is hatched, which is to be expected given at least two weeks without a queen (as you can see in the development timeline). There is just a hint of the start of new comb in the second brood box, so perhaps the bees are enjoying the new addition to their home.  

Day 36: Reading up on what has happened...

Beekeeping class textbook--with wonderful drawings

Having not heard back from my bee guru Rick, on how to proceed with my queen-wrong hive, I revisited my beekeeping class textbook and read Chapter 11, entitled “Special Management Problems.” I fully admit to having not read this chapter during my class, as I was much more interested in Chapter 4, entitled “Obtaining and Preparing for Bees.” Better late than never!! 

There are three main scenarios that result in the appearance of queen cells: swarming, supersedure, and emergency replacement. Each case can occur for several reasons, and have different features that a seasoned beekeeper could easily recognize--as for me, I am trying to do my best to play detective with limited information, and even less experience :)

Example swarm cells

Swarms can happen from hive congestion, overheating, inclement weather, loss of queen pheromones, poor egg laying due to too much honey in the combs, etc. It is characterized by 10-40 queen cells on the bottom of frames, a populous colony, and bees hovering near the hive entrance.

Supersedure happens when a colony decides to replace an old or inferior queen with a young queen. Workers build a few queen cells (between 1 and 5) and when the new queen emerges, she destroys the other queen cells, and generally her mother queen. This happens when the original queen is deficient in egg laying (due to injury, poor rearing, disease, or a hundred other reasons). 

Example emergency cells

Emergency queens develop when there is a sudden loss of the queen. Under these circumstances, the workers are forced to turn a couple of ordinary worker cells into a queen cells by adding wax as the larval queens develop. These cells are different than large queen cups that would be used for planned swarming or supersedure events. Emergency queen cells are usually found within the regular comb adjacent to capped brood and not at the bottom of the frames. Since emergency queens are unplanned, and start their development as worker larvae, they do not look as robust as swarm queens once they emerge.

Suspicious loitering by hive entrance

At this point I am pretty confident that my hive has undergone an emergency queen situation, even with some of the queen cells a bit close to the bottom edge of the frame, and despite some bees hanging out near the hive entrance later into the evening than previously (perhaps they are enjoying the warm weather!). I added the second brood box to the colony today, just in case congestion is an issue, though I have no evidence of this. I have decided to let all of the queen cells hatch on their own, and wait to see what happens next.

Honey & Trouble In Paradise :(

First honey of the season for the bees

 Upon opening the hive today, the first sight was capped honey on the outtermost frame! What a win for the bees…  However, within seconds, things quickly began to look more grim.

As I continued my inspection it was immediately apparent that things were not right in the hive. Though there were still several frames with capped brood, there was not a single egg, hatched egg, or young larva to be seen anywhere.   

If you look closely you can see two queen cells here--one of the left half of the picture, and one on the right

With each frame, the message became more and more clear: the queen was missing, and had been gone for at least a week judging by the stages of brood that remained. Last time I opened the hive I hadn’t seen the queen, and now her absence was confirmed. I was heartbroken. 

Another queen cell, a bit too close to the bottom edge 

Eleanor was visiting from California the weekend, and with her help we managed to take a few pictures of the frames. Notable were the presence of queen cells, which look like long distended drone cells. I think there were somewhere between 3-6 queen cells, but it is hard to know for sure since it took me midway through the hive before I realized what these cells were. This confirmed that the workers too had realized that the queen was no longer around and were making preparations.

I put in a call to Rick for advice, and sent him an email with some photos of what we had seen. He suggested that I wait to hear back from him before making a move. Options were to re-queen with a mated queen (in a cage, much like during the initial shake in) and destroy all of the queen cells, or destroy a few of the queen cells, such that when the new queens emerge their ensuing fight to the death for ownership of the hive would not be too gruesome. For a new queen to be successful, she would need to survive the fight, be strong enough to go out and mate, and then return to the hive to start laying new eggs. I awaited further instruction, and kept my fingers crossed.

Day 26: Removing the frame feeder

Gigantic drone cells at the top of the frame with larvae

 It has been nearly two weeks since I opened up my hive, so I was eager to have a look inside. Since the bees have settled in and there are plenty of flowers out, I removed the feeder and put in an empty frame a few frames from the edge. I was hoping it would be time to put on the second brood box, but it seems that the bees still have a couple of empty frames to fill up first. Perhaps they are still adjusting to their move across the yard.

Liz helped out with the inspection, and neither of us managed to spot the queen. However, there were plenty of small brood, suggesting that she has been laying. We saw a few drone cells near the bottom of several frames--a new sight of the season. Liz did a great job smoking, clearing the bees to prevent crush upon closing the hive, and taking pictures. 

The hive always looks a bit disturbed after the inspection with more bees than usual jamming up both the front and back entrances, but a few hours later all was well.

A trip to Juniper Moon Farm in Palmyra, VA

Entrance to Juniper Moon Fiber Farm

The 4 hives at Juniper Moon with adorable outer covers!

Recently I had the opportunity to spend a few days with my Mom and Emily at Juniper Moon Farm to celebrate mother's day. In addition to sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, geese, cows, donkeys, and dogs (and babies from nearly all of those species), they also had a few bee hives that we had the opportunity to open up. Immediately it was clear how good these bees had it in Virginia--warm sunny days, fields of clover, and a much longer flowering season than in Massachusetts.

Burr comb from idle bees with missing frames in the hive

So much honey already! Virginia bees are happy

Zac Hackney is the resident beekeeper on the farm, and has already caught two swarms this year (last year there were only two hives). During one of the swarms he was caught off guard and did not have enough frames to fill the hive. You can see that the bees wasted no time, and built out their own comb, maintaining perfect bee space between the sheets. He encouraged the bees to depart from this comb and take up residence in the new frames. The wax will be saved for candle making later in the year.

We also had the opportunity to stick our fingers into the recently capped honey to have a taste! The honey was so delicious and warm right out of the hive. I have the feeling that if my bees had any idea how plush their life would be (and were capable of flying 600 miles) that they would have moved to Virginia yesterday. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for honey in my hive later in the season...

Pollen from the combs and into the baskets!

My favorite bee sight so far this spring has been spotting the foraging bees with hind legs loaded down with pollen. This indicates that the workers have found some flowering plants to their liking close by. After returning to the hive, the workers deposit the pollen pellets into the comb and hive bees add bacteria and enzymes from their stomachs to the pellets. These organisms acidify and eventually ferment the pollen, which turns it into bee bread. Pollen provides protein, lipids, vitamins, and minerals that are necessary nutrients for the colony.


Also discovered yesterday that re-wearing pants that you got stung in without washing can lead to re-aggravation of a bee sting :)  My sting from Day 6 had disappeared without a trace.  However, after another day in my weekend jeans, my knee starting itching all over again--I am guessing due to some bee venom lingering in the fabric. No doubt a rookie mistake not to be repeated.

Day 12: Moving the apiary, and checking for a "good brood pattern"

Hive in its new location, 90 degrees rotated

Plenty of bees and burr comb on the inner cover

With nicer weather it becomes clear just how much our bees love flying into the neighbor's driveway! Wanting to cause as little friction in our new neighborhood as possible, we decided to pick up and move the hive closer to our driveway and garage. Emily was a trooper and suited up for the big move. Eric and Melanie watched from a few feet back. This time we tucked pants into socks to prevent intruders--this makes the bee outfit even cuter! The eggs were maturing perfectly, with visible eggs, tiny hatchlings, small larvae, big larvae, and capped pupae. It seems that the queen and her attending workers have been exceedingly busy in the last six days. I can't wait until the new bees start to hatch, which should be in the next 10 days. The hive feeder was nearly empty, so we refilled with sugar syrup, drowning only a few poor bees. There were only 2 completely empty frames left, so it won't be long before we can put the second brood box on. Many a bee were still flying in the old hive location, but I have been reassured a thousand times that there are still thousands of bees left in the hive. I hope the 90 degree rotation doesn't throw off their waggle dances for long.

Really beautiful picture showcasing several stages of baby bee development, worker bees, a few big drones, and a nice stash of bright orange pollen around the perimeter.

Day 6: Eggs!

Teeny tiny bee eggs, as seen on black Pierco frame inserts.

Ted and I opened up the hive today to look for evidence of freshly laid eggs. With the recent wet weather, it was impossible to find any dry fuel in the yard for the smoker, so I used some junkmail. This approach worked imperfectly for a very short amount of time. Due to a weekend away, we also opened up much later in the day than would have been ideal, so the inspection was kept to a minimum. I loosened the center frame and pulled it up to see dozens of eggs in lovely new white comb. This quieted my fears that I had squished the queen last time I opened the hive :) Ted also spotted the queen with his flashlight, who is marked with a yellow dot. What we saw looks very much like this image I borrowed from the Peace Bee Farmer blog--though clearly they were performing their inspection at a more appropriate time of day.


Today also marks my first sting from one of my own bees. Somehow a bee managed to sneak up my pant leg while we were closing up the hive. Ted gave a puff of smoke up the cuff once I discovered that there was a waylaid bee, however it was too late. I came inside, and immediately took of the pants--the felines were delighted to bat at and chew the dying bee.

Day 3: Queen has been released

This is not my cage, but you get the idea.

Opened up the hive quickly this morning to see if the queen had left her cage. It was in the low 40s, so I tried to be quick, but I was so very curious. Separating the center frames with my shiny new hive tool, I was able to wiggle out the cage. There were three workers inside, nibbling at the remains of the candy plug, but the queen was out. I closed the hive back up, and crossed my fingers that I didn't squeeze the queen to death. I certainly squished a few workers putting back on the inner cover--but I am counting on the 9,000 plus bees remaining to keep the queen warm. Unfortunately, when on my own in the hive it is tough to take photos...more to follow soon.

Day 1: The big shake in!

After one night spent in the basement, and during a break in the rain, it was time to get the bees into the empty hive. The shake in was much less scary than I had feared, but midway through Ted put on his hoodie too--confirming that the bees were out and about, and buzzing very loudly!

Sporting the attractive new bee hoodie and brush.

Bees were clearly excited to leave the shoebox.

Here is a video of my fearless beekeeping teacher, Rick Reault, installing a package of bees. I had a much easier time removing my nectar can than he did, but he had significantly more confidence with the shake! I set up my hive with one brood box (minus one frame), a frame feeder filled with syrup from Rick, and a nice sturdy hive stand made by Ted.