Good work from the hive dive team. We will followup with the recommendations that Claire has suggested. Thanks to all who helped with the hive dive this week.
Hive Dive (June 7th, 2025)
Visitors include eight 9-year-old kids and their parents from Brad York’s church. Also in attendance were a few TBA new beekeepers.
Conducting the evaluations: Brad Jacob, Renee and Jim Munly
Notetaker: Claire Moody
The goal was to evaluate five hives. Each colony turned out to be a completely different situation than the rest. It was very, very helpful to have several minds to talk through what we saw and what we should do. Remember to sanitize your tool between hive evaluations.
The first colony (#3a) was a single deep. There was a medium amount of bees and nectar, quite a bit of eggs, larva, and capped brood and plenty of space for expansion. What it does need is a pollen patty.
The second colony (#7) was two deeps overfilled with bees, eggs, larva, capped brood; plenty of honey and nectar. We did find the queen. There absolutely should have been swarm cells but there weren't any. We took off the feeder, added a queen excluder and an empty super. This colony also needs a pollen patty and MUST be checked again for swarm cells next week. It could easily be split but a better idea would be to move some of the capped brood frames to weaker hives of which there are a few.
The third colony (#8) had likely swarmed. There were no eggs, larva, capped brood, not many bees. There were a couple of swarm cells opened from the bottom and couple of swarm cells chewed from the sides. It’s likely there is a virgin queen in there though we did not find her. This will need to be checked for a mated queen in about two weeks (June 21st).
Colony 9 had lots of eggs, larvae, capped brood, and about eight frames covered with bees. It had honey and nectar but very little pollen. We did see the queen (marked blue). It had been a single deep and we added a second brood box.
Colony 10 was the most fun of all! It was two deeps full of bees plus a super above a queen excluder filled with honey not quite capped. About eight of the frames in the top box had multiple queen cells on each frame! We did not find the queen but there were so many bees it’s hard to imagine they swarmed (but they could have). We made an executive decision to divide up the frames with queen cells and made four mating nucs since raising queens is one of the goals of the club. Mating nucs do not require lots of frames of bees as would be the case if we were trying to get them to BUILD a queen cell. So each mating nuc had the frame with the queen cells, two frames with capped brood and bees, and a honey frame. (They are in cardboard nuc boxes. I’m going to wrap with insulated foil for additional warmth since the queen cells may still have to be kept in the 90’s. I have to look this up or ask Ramesh and next week’s bee meeting.)
We turned what was a hive with two deeps into a single deep with one frame with swarm cells on it and put the super full with honey back on for the bees to hopefully cap over.
Since all of the queen cells were capped but we don’t know for how long, we should wait about three weeks before checking for mated queens. (June 28th).
Food for thought: APIARY TEAM COULD MOVE EXTRA QUEEN CELLS FROM MATING NUC FRAMES TO INCUBATOR AND SELL UNMATED QUEENS. THERE WERE MULTIPLE QUEEN CELLS ON EACH FRAME.
What a huge gift to share all that is happening. Everyone will be better beekeepers thanks to you! So thank you so much!
Thank you for the report. This is a good idea to help all of us know what is going on at our Apiary. These are busy and exciting times.
By the way, I have been out to the Apiary and Garden Learning Center a few times lately and I am still surprised with what has been developing over the last two weeks.
We will try each week to write an update on the Beekkeepers Forum about the TBA Apiary.
The most exciting thing is that we caught two swarms. Both were unmarked queens so we don't really know where they came from. One was caught in the tree to the west of the apiary and we retrieved it using the basket and pole method. The other surprised us by occupying the swarm trap stationed in the northwest corner of the apiary. Both are producing eggs and larvae at this time.
We have added a third deep box to two hives that are very strong, and equalized some frames of brood to other hives that could use additional bees. We added supers to several hives. By the end of this week all hives should have a super installed. One hive has a second super. Let's make some honey. Blackberry vines are starting to bloom in Tillamook County.
We had a call from one member that something was going on in one of their hives. A super strong brood pattern suddenly changed to a spotty pattern. The hive was inspected and determined it ;probably has European Foul Brood. A cool damp spring is conducive to EFB occurring, as it is much like the common cold in humans. EFB is present in most hives all the time but is controlled by the colony. Without the member inspecting the hive and noticing changes it could get out of hand.
This Saturday Brad Jacob and Claire Moody will be leading the Hive Dive at the apiary. There is always something to learn each time hives are inspected so join them to observe and participate.
If you haven't been at the apiary lately you will be surprised with what has been developing over the last two weeks.