Bees In Trouble Again

Another hive is dwindling and I do not know what to do about it. This is the one that got all moldy and gross in December. I had added a few frames of brood from the stronger hive and cleaned up the mold and wet frames in hopes it would give them a better chance of making it through winter. I was just out there looking at them today and saw that they are really weak and have hardly an bees in their colony. So few I was able to open the hive without any protective gear. Tomorrow I open all of them up to see what is going on but in the meantime I have to figure out if there is anything I can do to help.

I found a great bee blog by this guy in West Virginia and he suggests taking young bees and larvae out of a stronger hive and adding them to the weak colony. But I thought that if you mix bees from two colonies that they will fight to the death and also kill the queen by making a giant bee ball around her and suffocating her. He says that if you spray them with a mix of sugar water and spearmint oil it masks their hive phermone for enough time for them to get used to each other. They clean the sugar water off each other and by the time they are done they all smell like they come from one colony. Of course, it might not work and then I will have a giant bee war on my hands. Hard choice. Let the little hive starve and die or introduce possibly aggressive bees into its house in an effort to save it.

I can also make this stuff called bee patties...basically brewer's yeast, soy flour and sugar water mixed in such proportions that it turns into a thick sticky paste that you then spread on wax paper and drop in the top of the hive boxes for them to snack on. This bee blogger says that you can see the happy increase in bee activity in a few hours. I want to do that for all the bees, expecially the little sick colony, but do not have time to make any tonight or tomorrow in time to get it in the hive by the time I open them up at 2pm. I have to do some unexpected gardening work tomorrow so I am busy till 2. And I have to open them and get them all closed back up before it gets cold and the sun goes away. Not much time for making bee patties with a 5 gallon bucket, a drill and a paint stirring attachment.

Then I learn that honey is not the best food for bees! Why do they make it? They prefer nectar and pollen first. They will eat honey if they are really hungry, so I guess it is like me carrying powerbars around. I don't really like them but they will do in a pinch.





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Cleaning Up

When I got home there was a break in the rain so I cleaned up the soggy fermented bee hive stuff I have had sitting out in the rain in the side yard for about a month now. It was nasty and messy and rewarding to finish that job up and get them out of my sight and all neatly scraped and bleached. I need one free sunny day to open the hives up so I can see how they are doing and give them some more space so they can draw out more comb. I hated throwing all that hard work of theirs away today, but it was covered in mold and beyond saving. They must be really hungry because they were flying in between rain showers to try to get every last drop of good honey out of those gross frames. I need to make them some bee patties but I lost the recipe. Bee patties are like little bee hamburgers made out of brewer's yeast and sugar and some other stuff. It helps them get through the winter. Seems like they need it right now.

Yesterday I totally blew up my kitchen and made taper candles and also painted the new hive boxes. Why? Because I have a pile of paperwork on my desk I am avoiding. Technically, these things were on my to do list, so now I can check something off. The discount paint I bought for the beehives seems to perfectly match my bathroom so I can use it to paint over the blotches and mold spots. One step at a time. Soon I will have the most beautiful bathroom IN THE UNIVERSE.