What is it about these little guys? 
The ubiquitous black-capped chickadee and the tiny bushtit have been consistent guests to our backyard feeder. Until a few years ago we had no Chestnut-backed Chickadee sightings in our backyard-these days LOTS! They all arrive in a chattering cloud several times each day to enjoy the offerings of black sunflower seeds;  we also keep two cakes of chili-suet for the larger birds who, along with the squirrels, get all seeds spilled on the ground. Cheers for the LBBs.

Two at a time at the feeder-dozens of LBBs in the bushes and the Garry Oak

September musings:
We were hoping to see a little more action in Hive IQ; both hives were bringing in boatloads of pollen and we saw many orientation flights, so we had expected that both hives would be drawing comb and putting up some honey...
Our Sweinty hive WAS putting up honey--but they had continued to put it into old comb and also into the plastic black frames that we use for helping them draw the comb straight. Go figure!
It was time to remove the third deep on both hives, so we consolidated their stores and harvested honey: two frames of honey to share with Hive IQ and two frames for us.
We added a deep syrup feeder to Hive IQ and filled it up twice. These bees also received a pollen patty to boost their stores. We left the feeder in after the temps dropped to be in place for next spring. Fingers crossed that this new hive will winter over well. 
We did another round of honey harvesting, this time another variation-not crush and strain, but scrape and strain-with the two 8 pound plastic frames. Not too bad! 

Out and About in the mid-west

Our mid-July peeking discovered that our bees had decided to put up honey in old comb and use their fresh comb for the nursery...so, we tried the crush and drain method on a couple of frames; it is a viable method--this was one deep frame of honey. Next year we will rotate old comb out of the hive sooner so it won't be a problem.

The large jar was FULL when we topped it off with the second honey frame :^)

Last time I wrote, I had just done a split after our winter bees swarmed (maybe a couple times); today I am here to report that only one of the hives was successful with queen rearing and mating.

When I checked on the bees in Hive 1 on May 18th, I found the hive TOTALLY honey-bound and there was no evidence of brood, eggs, but several queen cells that were empty. There were quite a few drones and the bees were getting a bit lethargic...what to do now? After a bit of inquiry, I decided to recombine the two hives by shaking all the bees into one deep and using the "chew through paper" method to combine them. 

I also checked Hive 2 and found that there was indeed a new queen just getting started with laying, as there was brood and eggs and workers bringing in loads of pollen. Worryingly, there was also a lot of old empty brood in the lowest deep-but the new queen was starting at one end and had 3 frames of brood already. 

I decided to split the frames of honey between my IQ hive and Hive 2, so both could have that to get started. The bees chewed through with no problem and all seemed well until May 28--when I was sitting in front of the hive and a worker bee flew out with a a wax moth larvae and dropped it in front of me! Yikes.

I put on my suit and dug into the hive. I did not discover any wax moths, but there were a few areas of bald brood. The queen had filled several more frames and the hive seemed active and healthy; a bit more inquiry and I figured that while there had been a lull in population a wax moth must have flown in and laid a few eggs in the first deep in the old dark brood comb (will rotate out this year :^) Most say that the bees should be able to take care of it, so I'm letting theme do it. I haven't seen any more moth larvae dropped outside, but admit that the Stellar and Scrub jays are keeping things very tidy in front of the hive. No waste!

Our Hive IQ is going gangbusters! The queen is obviously doing her job as we've enjoyed several afternoons of watching the new bees taking orientation flights. Go girls!

Bonus Image: accidentally knocked this lovely piece of naturally drawn honeycomb out of the frame. So pretty!

Our bees swarmed on April 14, ten days after we added a honey super and queen excluder. The bees swirled, coalesced, and gathered in our Katsura before heading off into the afternoon sun. Way too high for us to capture. It was very exciting and we were very sad to see them go.

The bees had drawn out about half a frame in the honey super we had added, but it was obvious from the number of bees below the excluder that it was really slowing things down. 
​Note to self: with two deeps of brood-skip the excluders. 

Two days post-swarm I did a midday inspection 58F and found the hive surprisingly dense with worker bees. I ended up not making a complete inspection of all frames after I encountered a frame with queen cells. There were two frames of capped drone brood and one of worker brood, honey and pollen in the end frames. Was the hive honey-bound? Maybe. Definitely full to the brim with bees.

Queen cells: attempting to pull out the fifth frame I found it was really stuck to the bottom, i.e burr comb connecting it to the lower box, and I accidentally uncapped three of the Queen cells (see photo below). This left three Queen cells stuck to the bottom of the frame and three on the top bar of first brood box. The three lower queen cell caps were slightly damaged, with caps torn, but it looked like the workers were already patching things up. In the unstuck frame, there were at least three Queen cells and they looked intact.

What to do now?
I decided to to make a split and moved the second brood box from hive 1 to create the lower box for hive 2. I then placed the Queen cell frame in a second box surrounded by three frames of capped brood and six of drawn comb with honey and pollen on the edges. Hive 1 kept it's original lower brood box and received a second brood box with drawn out comb. The Queen cells are in the center of both hives.

Checking this morning, hive 2 had removed three unfinished pupae and dumped them outside, hopefully not all their queens!  There was action in both hives with orientation flights, though more with Hive 1. 

Guessing this queen pupae is 12 days old; that would mean that our hive swarmed the day after they capped the ten queen cells. A queen needs 5-6 days to mature after emerging, then 1-2 days for mating, then another 2-3 days before she starts laying eggs. 
Our queens should emerge on the 20th; evidence of success will be visible 10 days to two weeks later, the beginning of May. 

On a sunny day in January, bees were taking cleansing flights from one of our hives. I checked the other and found that the bees had absconded/swarmed leaving four deeps of honey and six frames of pollen in the top box. Down below were the empty brood frames with capped honey in the corners. I harvested two frames of cut-comb honey and gave the other two deeps of capped honey to our remaining hive. I then set up the empty box for new bees in the spring. 
​
Cut to late February: the bees began bringing in pollen by the bucket load and we began seeing the first of many orientation flights; spring build-up was going strong! Our Japanese boxwood was abuzz.

April 4: time for a honey super already! Our bees were starting to store honey and pollen in the burr comb at the top of the second brood box. I added a queen excluder and a deep for honey.