Hives @ Haas

Your bees are thriving and their population is booming! Your hives now have an additional box — this gives your bees more space to store honey, support an increasing workforce, and for the queen to lay eggs. When your bees are tired of maintaining their extra space and want to downsize to a smaller, more easily managed home, we’ll take the extra box back. The size of the hive reflects the needs of the bees; it’s something that’s on your beekeepers’ radars all year long. Weather did not allow us to perform deep checks this visit, so we will have a better bee health report for you at our next visit.

Your beekeepers stopped by to say hi to the bees and make sure that they have enough to eat. If it’s been rainy, the bees wouldn’t have been able to fly as far to forage for pollen and nectar. Their fuzzy bodies get weighed down with water, and it requires more energy to fly! Your colonies’ foragers have been working hard, it seems, and your hives are looking good! Both hives are super strong and continue to thrive! We gave them some supplemental resources and made sure you have happy queens. All looks good and healthy!

Your hives are both doing really well. They appear strong and healthy! On our first visit back, we are looking for the signs of life discernible without deep-diving into the hive and exposing the bees to the cold. Signs of life include: Buzzing from inside after a couple knocks on the side of the hive, Evidence of waste on the outside of the hive (bees don’t like a dirty living space), Dead bees on the ground in front of the hive (counterintuitive, but this is actually an indication that workers have been dragging out their dead through the winter) Your bees were buzzing away! Your beekeeper left them with a hefty quilt of sugar for supplemental feed, and then closed them right back up.

Both of your hives are doing really well! Hive 1 is strong and thriving with a large population. Hive 2 is also healthy, but the population as a whole is a little on the smaller side. Nothing to worry about now, but we noted it and are monitoring them in case they need a population boost. This hive is very healthy and beautiful though! Your bees have a lot of resources and are looking strong going into winter. We love seeing this! National overwintering rates hover around 40%, so it’s crucial that we do all we can to set them up for success. Our research has led to protocols that have given the hives our Best Bees team manages much higher overwintering rates than the national rate in most regions!

Both of your hives are doing well! They are strong and thriving with a good population. Your beekeeper gave your bees a little sweet treat! We provided the bees with some sugar water to supplement their nectar resources. Inside the hive is a “feeder” – a rectangular, hollow vessel that sits in the hive box like a frame. The sugar water is poured into the feeder, which has a lattice-like structure connecting the top of the feeder to the bottom. This serves as a ladder for the bees to crawl down and up to safely drink their sugar water! We give the bees supplemental feed during this time because floral resources are limited. The sugar water boosts their honey stores for the winter; while bees don’t make true honey from sugar water, they make a similar substitute that will provide them with the carbohydrates they need. We’ll leave your bees to it!

In your right hive, the queen is healthy and laying. The brood pattern looks good, but there just doesn't seem to be a large worker population. What population is there looks healthy, but we want to give them a little population boost, so we will be bringing some additional brood and bees to introduce to your hive. This should be all they need to get back to thriving!

Looks like your right hive colony recently swarmed! We take measures to try to prevent hives from swarming, but it is in the nature of honey bees to do so. It’s a real nature versus nurture conundrum, and this time, nature won. But don’t worry, your colony is just fine! This is actually a sign of a healthy thriving hive. The bees that stayed behind are now enjoying the increased space in their hive and all the extra leg room. It looks like your left hive is on verge of swarming as well, but we will try to split the colony before this happens so we can give the bees a home without them going out looking for one themselves. When a honey bee colony outgrows its home, becomes too congested, or too populated for the queen’s pheromones to control the entire workforce, the workers signal that it is time to swarm. They will build new queen cells, which the queen will lay eggs in. She then will stop laying eggs, and reduce her weight so she is able to fly and lead half of the colony out of the hive in search of a new home. The queens developing in the swarm cells in the old hive are attended by the bees that did not leave with the old queen. In 16 days, the new queens will begin to emerge. We will be back to check in on these lovely ladies, and the rest of your colony, soon!

We are happy to report that on our recent visit, our beekeeper found that both of your colonies are alive and well! Your beekeeper, Lars, stopped by to say hi to the bees and make sure that they have enough to eat. If it’s been rainy, the bees wouldn’t have been able to fly as far to forage for pollen and nectar. Their fuzzy bodies get weighed down with water, and it requires more energy to fly! Your colony’s foragers have been working hard, it seems, and your hive is looking good. Lars described them as “extremely active.” We’ll see you and your busy bees next time!

The Right Hive has a lot of excellent resources stored and ready to feed the bees through the winter. While there, Lars also check on the Left Hive. The queen-right combo installed last visit has been incorporated beautifully into the hive and the queen seems to be very happy. She’s busy maintaining a robust population in her new home. The ladies are hard at work raising the brood and collecting the last of the forage. We’ll be back again soon to check on them!

Lars visited this week to install a queen-right combo into the Left Hive. They had gone queenless and dwindled, so we brought them a new queen and a happy lot of bees. We also brought several of their built-out frames from the hive they were living in at our apiary. This way they can continue to raise brood, and store honey. Lars made sure they have room to grow, and sturdy frames to fill with important resources. While he was there, Lars noticed that the Right Hive had absconded. “Absconding” is when the colony has left their hive for a new home. Absconsions are hard to control, even when an ideal environment is provided by the beekeepers. Frequently, a hive will abscond due to factors outside of human control, such as pesticide exposure, air quality, predator activity, or they simply found a desirable spot elsewhere. The whole colony makes the decision to abscond together; it’s a very democratic process, like a town hall meeting. Unfortunately, we humans were not invited to cast our vote. Lars will come out on Tuesday morning, October 17th, to replace your colony with a new colony from one of our research apiaries. The bees are happy, healthy, and ready to settle into their new home. Every colony has a different personality and capacity for a given environment. Regardless, we will keep a careful eye on your new colony to monitor their response to their new hive.

Exciting news! The beekeepers were able to take a honey harvest from the Right Hive! As we discussed in August, first year hives don’t typically yield a harvest. But the ladies in the Right Hive have worked so hard, and put away more than enough honey for a comfortable winter survival. Harvesting honey is a delicate balance for us here at Best Bees. Honey is the bees’ food – it’s their source of carbohydrates; they need to have a sufficient amount of honey stored to get them through the winter. We only harvest the excess if a hive has been producing an abundance of honey. Beekeepers always assess the hive to make sure that, if they were to harvest, there would still be multiple frames of honey left in the hive. The health of the bees is our priority, so if a hive can’t spare the honey, we don’t harvest. Enjoy your sweet honey, knowing that it was ethically and sustainably harvested.

Your friendly neighborhood beekeepers here, just touching base after our last visit to your site! All seems to be running smoothly; both of your colonies are in excellent shape. The beekeeper added a box to the Left Hive to make room for their growing population, and influx of important resources! Our mission at Best Bees has been to improve bee health since Day 1.  But how does managing a national network of data-yielding honey bee hives help native bees, you might ask? Well, one way is to leverage honey bees as an indicator species. An indicator species, also known as a bioindicator, is one that reflects the condition of the environment around it. To be an effective bioindicator, a species should have a population big enough to easily study, and it has to respond to changes in a measurable way. Of the roughly 3,600 species of bees in North America, more than 90 percent are solitary in nature. This makes continuously monitoring and studying them an almost impossible task. Honey bees, on the other hand, are very easily managed and studied. Working together as a whole unit, honey bee colonies, while at risk, are resilient to the many environmental stressors they face. This allows for long-term monitoring, which means we can map environmental changes in an area as well as study trends over time.

Your Right Hive briefly was without a queen bee, but not to worry — your colony has a new queen in charge! Our beekeepers came prepared with a combo — frames that contain a queen bee, brood, larvae, and worker bees — to be added to your hive. The old and the new bees are separated by a layer of newspaper to keep the new queen safe while the bees get used to each other’s pheromones. The top is propped to give the bees in the top box an entrance and exit. The bees have to tear through the paper before they can interact, and this process takes them some time, allowing the pheromones to mingle. By the time the new and old bees can pass through the paper, they will have accepted each other as their own.

The days are longer, the flowers are blooming, and our favorite, the bees are buzzing! On our recent visit, your beekeepers were able to get inside the hives and conduct a full check. They examined frames to look at the queen bee’s egg laying pattern, checked on their food stores, and observed their beeswax production. Everything looked to be in tip-top shape! The hives were neat as a pin – did you know that honey bees never use the bathroom inside their hive? Instead, they take what is called a “cleansing flight.” In addition to keeping the hive clean, this activity allows the housebound worker bees to stretch their wings and exercise their flight muscles.

On our visit last week, the beekeeper inspected both hives, and thoroughly checked to make sure that none of the recent tampering has hurt the colonies. Both colonies are healthy and continuing to grow, though the right one is a little bit smaller than the left. The ants had invaded the top box, interested in the feeder full of sugar water. The beekeeper replaced the top box with a fresh one, and took the feeder away. The bees have been collecting resources from local forage, so the sugar water is unnecessary for now. The beekeeper also installed an ant trap to collect any future ant visitors. The bees are okay, and both queens are laying fresh eggs. We will continue to monitor their health and growth.

On their recent visit, the beekeepers checked on the populations in both hives. In the beekeepers’ words, the colonies are “small but hardy!” It looks like the queens in both hives were off to slow starts, but their productivity has ramped up recently. Perhaps they were wary to get started, and took their time getting comfortable, but it’s evident now that both queens are laying eggs at a much improved rate. The frames of eggs and days old brood in the hives have doubled, and the population will soon reflect this! The beekeepers look to the shape and pattern of the queen’s egg-laying to come to conclusions about her health. The queens in both hives are laying in gorgeous rainbow patterns, a very good sign of wellness.

On their visit on the 5th the beekeepers noticed that the left hive had been tampered with. The strap was taken off, and the lid was askew. The bees were totally fine inside, and we’ll keep tabs on whether or not this happens again. I’ll keep you posted with follow up notes! While there, the beekeepers added boxes to the hives! This gives the bees more room for their expanding populations. Both colonies are healthy and growing. The queens are active and laying eggs. The forager ladies are out and about, coming back to the hive with brightly colored “pollen pants.”

On Friday, the beekeepers were able to successfully install the bees in their new homes! You may notice your bees flying around their hives in a figure-eight pattern; this is their orientation flight, a technique used to get comfortable in their new home. This activity will only last for a few days – bees are quick learners! We’re so glad you decided to join us on our mission to improve bee health. The research we do, partnered with property owners like you, helps us to save the beesand other native pollinators. This, in turn, protects the global food supply, contributes to cleaner air through carbon cycling, and supports biodiversity.