I wanna be a Bee Nerd!

Over the last two days, I have been in Gainesville Florida, attending their Spring Bee College. It's an intensive two day event of all sorts of bee classes hosted by University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS), and the Honey Bee Research and Extension Lab (HBREL). Y'all, if you thought I was a bee nerd, well, I've got nothing on the bee nerds at UF. I *aspire* to be the kind of bee nerds they are. They are my bee nerd idols. Their knowledge of bees is simply awe inspiring. Particularly Dr. Jamie Ellis, Professor and Administrator of HBREL.

This guy is so passionate about honey bees. He's been keeping bees for 30 years, has a PhD in Entomology, a BS is Biology, and created the UF, South Florida, and Caribbean Bee Colleges, and the UF Master Beekeeper Program. He KNOWS bees. I'm pretty sure he eats, breathes and sleeps bees. I went to all three of his classes and got to listen to him talk all about honey bees for a total of 4 hours, learning about swarming, stings and honey bee biology. I learned soooo much from him. While I would, and could, ramble on and on about all the things I learned from him, I'll spare you from much of that. But rest assured, if I tell you something amazing about bees, I probably learned it from this man. He's my ultimate Bee Guru. I want to know what he knows. I want to know ALL THE BEE THINGS.

So I was thrilled to get to attend UF/IFAS 2020 Bee College and hear from people like Dr Ellis and hang out and meet other Florida beekeepers. It was a fun and informative two days!

Look! They spelled my name right!

Oooo they also had some vendors. In my first 30 minutes, I had already bought 3 tee shirts and 2 stickers.

The "Warning" tee is particularly fitting.

ANYWAY... let me get back on track. You're here to hear about MY bees. Last weekend I split my hive. Well. One of the things I learned at Bee College was that I DID MY SPLIT ALL WRONG!!!

I mean, it was wrong, but also not wrong. Things aren't going to implode or anything. The good thing about being a backyard beekeeper with a small apiary is that I'm not under pressure to do things exactly perfect because I'm not relying on my bees for income. I'm pretty much just doing this for fun and education. So I can do things wrong and learn from them and everything will be ok. Yay. That's perfect for me because I frequently do things the wrong way. But that's how I learn. Try. Learn. Try again.

I intended to do a split to prevent a swarm, but I actually only did a split to make two hives. Which is fine. I also wanted two hives. You're probably saying "huh? What's the difference?" ...

[pause] Ok, I just typed out a really long paragraph explaining things I learned from Dr Ellis and it's super interesting to me, but I deleted it because I could feel your eyes glazing over and you closing your browser window. So, yeah. Never mind. Suffice it to say, there is a difference between doing a split with the intention of preventing a swarm and doing a split only to make two hives. I didn't necessarily prevent a swarm in hive #1, but I did make two hives. So ok. I asked questions and was told what to look for and things are probably fine. I don't think they're at risk of swarming right now. And when I do see signs of swarming, I know what to do.

So today I eagerly checked my hives armed with all this new Bee College and Dr Ellis knowledge. What is hive #2 doing? It's been a week since the split. When I opened it up, by this time, I WANTED to find queen cells. And I did.

These are just two of the handful of queen cells I found. They are closed up so there is a developing queen inside. When the first one emerges, she will find the other developing queens and sting through the wax to kill the larvae or pupa inside. If two queens happen to emerge at the same time, they will fight to the death. In the end, hopefully hive #2 will be left with one healthy virgin queen. She will then leave for her mating flight and hopefully make it back and begin laying eggs. I'll know if she was successful when I find eggs in hive #2, probably in about a 5-ish weeks? In the meantime, the nurse bees that I put in there during the split have begun to graduate to other tasks, and there are now some foragers flying to and from, bringing in nectar and pollen. Hive #2 looks to be doing ok. Population is good, and so long as they successfully get a queen, it's going to be fine.

But even if they don't, I have another hive. I can take a frame of eggs & brood and put it in that hive and let them try again. Guys, having two hives is FREAKING AWESOME.

So how's hive #1 doing? I opened it up and found lots of everything I want to see! Like brand new eggs..

..and our queen Charmaine!

Oh oh! Here's a neat pic.. all three kinds of bees in one photo! A drone, our queen, and of course our lovely workers!

The drone is the darker fatter one towards the top, and Charmaine is in the lower left.

Speaking of drones, there are LOTS of drone brood... the larger bubble wrap looking brood cells. This is a sure sign that Spring has sprung for my bees! My queen is making drones who will go out and mate with other virgin queens and spread the queen's genes to make more and more and more bees! Remember, drones do not have a father. They are born from unfertilized eggs. Charmaine is their only parent and they only carry her genetics. Ugh.. fascinating! (Oh lawd if you could get in my head and know the things I now know about bees and queens and genetics and biology and omgbeesaresofreakingcool!!)

Ahem. Sorry I get excited. I also saw nice fresh new drawn comb, which is important because it lets me know that the hive still has space for our queen to lay eggs, which lessens the chance that they will swarm.

And in these cells there are eggs and brood of all stages.

I know I'm starting to turn into a bee nerd because when I first started beekeeping, I used to get a little grossed out by those gooey wet looking larvae. (I'm not scared of bugs but things like worms and larvae and maggots have always grossed me out.) But now I think they're the most beautiful thing ever. Perfectly white little Cs of baby bee magic. They're GORGEOUS.

One of the things I learned to help minimize the chance of a swarm is to remove or destroy the queen cup cells the bees make. These are larger cells made in advance for a queen. The workers may decide to move an egg to a queen cup if they decide to raise a new queen. I don't want them to do that. So on hive #1, I went through and scraped off or destroyed any queen cups or cells I found. No no little bees, you're gonna stick with Charmaine for a while longer if I have anything to say about it. Here is a queen cell I found, and I opened it up. The white goo at the bottom is not a squished larvae. That is royal jelly! This tells me that the bees have already moved an egg to it, but I'm sorry not sorry girls, she's not going make it.

Royal jelly is bee food, like pollen and bee bread (pollen mixed with saliva and honey). But royal jelly is to bee bread like a filet mignon is to ground beef. Royal Jelly is the top shelf stuff, and the highest in nutrition. All eggs get royal jelly in the first 3 days, but most are then switched to bee bread, pollen & honey. Eggs that are chosen to be a queen are only ever fed royal jelly, which is what makes them develop into a queen.

So. All in all, both of my hives are looking good for now (isn't that always the case? "For now?") Spring is a very active time for bees, and likewise for the beekeeper. I have to stay extra vigilant to keep hive #1 from swarming. If I had done my split the correct way, I would have put Charmaine in the NEW hive and let the old hive raise a new queen. Keeping her in the old hive doesn't really change a whole lot. It's still a strong colony that is growing fast. If I had put her in the new hive, the old hive would have gone through about 6 weeks of reduced growth while they raise a new queen, which would have stopped a swarm from happening. But I did it wrong and hive #2 is the weaker hive with reduced growth. Oops. This was my mistake. But I didn't know. Now I do.

I might split again in a few weeks. And this time, I'll know how to do it the RIGHT way. Thanks Bee College!

Also, here's some bee bridges to make you smile.

🐝