Rainy Season Expansion

The rainy season began since the last posting.  Currently it rains everyday somewhere in the greater Miami area.  This weather pattern will continue until hurricane season ends in November.  The colonies, however, thrive during this wet time as anything and everything blooms.  South Florida's sub-tropical climate allows for unusually long colony expansion time and almost an endless honey flow (11 of the 12 months!).  In the rest of the country, the honey flow might be only 2 or 3 weeks! 

When Emily and I took the bee-ginners beekeeping class at the Fairchild Gardens, we were warned about working the hives on cloudy, cold, or ugly days.  The teacher was right and lessons were learned the hard way yesterday.  As I arrived at the hives around noon, the cloudy sky and warm temperatures gave me mixed feeling about the ensuing encounter.  The goal for this trip: check the health of the colonies, add a second box to Colony #1, and add the first honey super to Colony #2.  Both colonies displayed great activity at their entrances.  As I lit the smoker I made a play-by-play in my mind to ensure a quick and efficient visit.  Did you know that, on average, 150 bees are killed during hive manipulation?  This serves as more proof that honey bees should remain uninhibited as much as possible (within reason, of course).  Also, it does not help when I accidentally drop the lid 2 inches and get a few hundred ticked-off bees airborne.  Granted, I kept my cool and only got stung once (on my thumb).

As I opened hive #1, it looked more crowded than a Japanese subway.  Never have I ever seen that many honeybees in one box!  Bees, like humans, allow weather to affect foraging and their overall mood.  Ask Emily, when cold or overcast days become too much for me, I become a cranky old man.  On cloudy or rainy days the colony comes home to the hive.  Anyways, I methodically inspected the frames and observed new worker brood in a nice tight formation.  Oh, and I also saw the second Queen!  She is a golden beauty.  Unfortunately, I did not capture a picture of her...maybe next time.  I quickly replaced the frames to their positions and added a second, empty medium hive body.

Colony #2 provided a surprise of more honey comb on the roof of the hive!  This colony is ready to expand into a honey super.  At least two frames in the top box were almost strictly capped honey.  Working from the bottom box up, I only inspected a few frames observing more worker brood and a few drone brood as well!  Drone brood looks like a bullet is sticking out of the hive since drones are bigger and they incubate just a little longer than queens and workers.  I removed the queen excluder from the hive floor and moved it to the top to separate where the queen can lay and where I will collect the honey.  Yes, this means the queen has access to leave now, but the strong hive she rules over keeps her within the hive.  I then added the first honey super (an empty medium hive body with 10 frames). 

Colony #2: The queen excluder is on top of the second hive body.   The queen excluder is just that, it allows workers and drones to pass through, just not the queen.  Also, observe the fresh honey comb on the roof of the hive.



Goals Met: Additional hive body for Colony #1 and the addition of a honey super to Colony #2.


Sometimes necessity dictates the  manipulation of the hives on cloudy days.  If avoidable, remember to work honey bees only on nice beautiful days that you would rather lay on the beach and drink mojitos.