three purple petals and six yellow anthers

On the morning walk I discovered honey bees visiting this plant - check out the crisp iPhone photo.   We purchased this flowering perennial too, but I lost track of its name.     I eventually found the plant on an Internet search -  spiderwort.  My garden books were not helpful - perhaps Walter Reeves will consider a Georgia book for beekeepers?

The neighborhood stinks of flowering Privet which started to bloom a few days ago.   A few front yards (without  herbicides) contain tons of white clover.   Has my big honey crop year hit a bump? - is the bee population in or out of sync with the weather and flowering plants? - four inches of rain in three days was ridiculous! - these are the uncertainties of the honey harvest.

Foundationless Frames by Walter T Kelly

I discovered  a conversation to reduce the current center-to-center frame spacing from 1 3/8" to 1 1/4" in the brood chamber.  Although narrow frames are not commercially available,  the commercial medium sized Foundationless Frames caught my attention - I ordered the foundationless frames and  assembled them using the glue on day1 and nail on day2 strategy.

I wanted to add a thin layer of beeswax to the center guide, but advice on the Internet seemed either messy or complicated.   I filled an empty food can with beeswax - after removing the can from the boiling water bath, the wax remains liquid for many minutes - long enough for me to dab wax onto the center guide using a piece of cardboard.  My application method needs more work -  imagine a brushing style and not Jackson Pollock dripping paint.   I placed a large cardboard sheet on top of the working counter top - a few wax drips landed in the wrong place, but the cleanup was easy.

2013 tulip poplar flower

On April 15th, I inspected all three hives. The hive with the most flight activity recently drew 8 foundation strips and filled the frames solid with honey.  I am out of medium boxes, so I quickly supered with a deep box containing foundation strips.  I am surprised to see a good nectar flow (and storage) before the arrival of tulip poplar flowers.  Weeks ago, I planned to use my deep boxes to split this hive, but they chose to build vertically and not place queen cells where I can find them.  This could be my big honey year or this could be my imagination.

The other two hives are drawing their foundation strips and filling the frames with honey at a much slower pace. All hives have an amazing low number of small hive beetles (SHB) above the inner cover - killed 3 SHB per hive.   Knock on wood the SHB population remains within bee manageable limits.

I quickly ordered more medium sized boxes boxes from Brushy Mountain and they arrived in four days. The frames have a new milled shaped, most noticeably with a redesign of the frame sides (aka end bars).  The frames are easier to assemble than the old design.  My only concern is with nooks where sides meet the top bar and how they may become hiding places for SHB - I have an very active imagination when it comes to SHB.

At the MABA meeting, Jerry Wallace suggested gluing the frames on day1 and nailing them on day2 - works great and preformed better at keeping the frame pieces at right angles. Thanks Jerry, you are the bee man.

On April 19, I found pieces of tulip poplar flowers and unopened flowers that the wind and squirrels have tossed to the ground.  Nothing worth photographing until I found one medium sized tulip poplar flower head for this blog post.

white eyed drone bee

Although I know about white eyed drones from reading First Lessons in Beekeeping, my first live encounter took me by surprise.  I thought to myself, what kind of new insect is peering up between the frames and why would I want to investigate a new question - I already have a long list of hive inspection goals.

Glenn Apiaries has a discussion of inherited recessive genes and their expression in drone offspring   As I found just one drone bee with white eyes.  So, I will (for now) conclude his sightless white eyes are a mutation and not an inherited condition.

my 2013 spring experience

On March 16th, I removed the bee cozy and added one medium super too each hive.  Blue nitrile gloves worked great - fantastic zero sting outcome.   Discovered many small hive beetles (SHB) above the inner cover which only fed my SHB concerns coming out of a warm winter.  I also readied my swarm traps with new pheromone lures.

The bee cozys were kept off the hives for my beekeeping convenience - I unilaterally declared spring had arrived.  In hindsight, bee cozy removal timing was too enthusiastic as March in Atlanta was cooler than usual. Using the Georgia Automated Environmental Monitoring Network data, I compared this year's minimum temperatures with two other years.

I'm fooled again - next time, I will ignore the NOAA spring climate forecast and watch the NOAA Arctic Oscillation (AO index) for short term Atlanta winter temperature trends. My apologies about the crude correlation of graphs - notice how the negative cycle of the AO index correlates with the cool/low 2013 minimum temperature curve.  A few days after the removal of the bee cozy marks the lowest point in the AO index - oh well.

condensation

Today's 31°F dawn temperature condenses warm moist bee respiration on the outside of the hive. Ages ago, I inserted a 1" slab of Styrofoam insulation beneath the outer cover to prevent condensation inside the hive.  On cold mornings, it's not unusual to discover condensation near the top vent, but wetness near the hive entrance is less common. Only one hive has condensation at the entrance - in warm weather, this is the hive that flies more vigorously than my two other hives.

spring 2013 weather outlook

NOAA announced that "2012 was warmest and second most extreme year on record for the contiguous U.S."   Looking forward, NOAA forecasts the Atlanta spring 2013 with above normal temperatures and normal rainfall.  

On warm days, I see bees foraging for water, mahonia, rosemary and winter blooming cherry (too difficult to catch on camera).  The bee cozies are still on, but not for too much longer.  I am lucky, all three hives are still alive - I plan to spring split the strongest hives in an attempt to control swarming and create another hive.