Snowshoe Farm

It is late January, and it is time to check in on the hives; see how things are going for the bees. The winter, to date, has been relatively mild; very little snow with many days above freeze with the exception of several days of -10 degrees F (-23 degrees C).

During the winter months, unlike the spring, summer and fall months where bears and errant children tend to be a hive's major foes, the major foes of a hive are moisture (condensation), temperature (cold), and food (or lack there of). Moisture is most easily controlled through adequate ventilation - leaving an entrance open at the bottom of the hive (with a mouse guard in place) as well as having a top entrance of some sort usually allow for things to be well ventilated. Moisture plus cold are a certain death for a hive. It is very similar to a wet human in the cold - hypothermia sets in quickly followed by death.

We deal with cold by adding insulation to the mix. Our hives at the Ahrens' Bee Yard are encased in a polystyrene tomb (with entrance holes). All of our hives at the location are back to back or side to side (we have eight hives at this location). Two hives deep by four hives wide, this rectangle is encased by two inches (51 mm) of polystyrene insulation on all sides (including underneath). in addition to giving the hives an extra R value of about 9, it acts as a fantastic wind and draft break.

Food is a long term planning item for the bees. Because they spend all spring and summer gathering for the fall and winter, under normal circumstances, they should have an adequate store of honey and pollen - if they were left to their own devices. However, we, the keepers, add another variable to the mix when we harvest the sweet goodness of honey. Luckily, we did not harvest honey from the Ahrens' Bee Yard this past season. We wanted to establish the colonies in their hives and be able to start this coming season with fully drawn out comb with seasoned, over-wintered queens. If we had harvested, we would be concerned, going into February, with whether the bees had exhausted their food stores. This is why we perform winter checks -- to supplement, when needed, the food stores of the hives.

Rolling into the Ahrens' Bee Yard in the truck, it was apparent that they had received more snow than at our house thirty miles (48 km) to the south. Looking in the rearview mirror, I could see two paths cut through the eight inches (20 cm) of snow by the tires. We pulled up over the hill, and tucked up against the pines at the edge of the field was our polystyrene sarcophagus. Melissa helped with the initial snow removal from the top and disassembly of some of the panels, but she quickly made it back to the truck when it came time to break into the bee-chamber.

The first hive to check was my beekeeping partner's hive. Upon pulling off the inner cover, the hive-scent hit my nose and the feisty Russian bees began to trickle up toward the surface. The sugary syrup in feed pail had crystalized -- a quick slit of with my knife and the lid was freed. The lidless pail was returned and the hive buttoned back up.

The second hive to check was the Canadian bees. Upon removing the inner cover, I was greeted with emptiness. No hive smell, no hive sounds - just emptiness. I removed all but the bottom deep set of frames - empty. Just dead bees. There was very little honey in the frames, which made think of robbery by the other bees in the sarcophagus.

Hive three's only special attribute was a dead mouse suspended face down in the remaining heavy syrup in the insulation/feed box. Hive four revealed an extremely strong, extremely feisty lot of bees. With the inner covered removed, I found an empty feed box a multitude of bees cleaning the remaining sugar crystals out. Removing the feed box, the hive foamed over with bees and the alarm pheromone of the bees, which smells a lot like bananas, wafted up in my nose. I worked quickly, and frequently puffed smoke at the hive to calm them. I replaced several empty honey box ("super") frames with frames containing fondant.

The remaining hives were uneventful; no other dead hives, no other dead mice, and no other angry, banana-scented hives, just bees keeping busy in the depths of winter.

神奈川県内は養蜂家も多数います．そちらであたる方がよろしいかと思います．県の畜産課等に問い合わせて，適当な方を紹介いただくのがよろしいかと思います．

A handful of people know this already, but, in March, for two weeks, I will be in Japan. I am sure my sister will take me to Hello Kitty Land (Sanrio Puroland) in Tokyo, but I am more interested in monasteries, castles and, of course, beekeeping.

With my sister's help, we have been trying to contact various beekeepers in Japan. One problem: language. My sister speaks some Japanese, but does not write kanji. I do neither of those at all. With the help of a friend of my sister's, we have a couple emails into beekeepers around Japan. No luck so far. I have, however, contacted 玉川大学ミツバチ科学研究センター (the Honeybee Science Research Center, Tamagawa University) and they were kind enough to suggest I try contacting the prefecture's livestock department (that is what the introductory paragraph of kanji says to do). That will be next - attempting to contact my sister's prefecture's livestock department (I imagine this is something akin to my county or state's agriculture department or office). The language is just killing me, though.

When I visited Finland a few years ago, the Finns have absorbed so many English words (and put a Finnish twist on them) that it was relatively easy to reabsorb their words and get at least an idea of what hell was going on; plus, everyone expect for the farthest outreaches in Lapland had people who spoke nearly perfect English. My initial dealings with people from Japan (both on this beekeeping project, and with my work life) are proving that there is a much sharper learning curve to get past for both sides of the language equation.

I am getting excited for my trip to the Far East; good food, snow monkeys, shogun castles, shinto monasteries, giant buddha, mountains, and of course Sanrio Puroland. If the beekeeping in Japan project does not pan out, I am sure I will still have more than enough to occupy my two weeks.

As I spend my evening with my wife, Melissa, at the emergency room, a fleeting thought danced across my head: computer coding, being mostly solitary, tending bees and being an assistant-lord to a flock of chickens suits me well. Being an E.R. nurse, doctor, tech, assistant, or otherwise would put me on edge. I am a bit on edge now just sitting here. Too much commotion, too much movement. This is not to say that these are not valuable societal occupations; it is just not a work field that would suit me. Besides, I trend toward sweating the small things, and being generally nervous. These are not qualities that would put a patient in duress at ease.

In an Andy Rooney-like fashion, I digress.

The weather here in Northern Minnesota, and all of Minnesota for that matter, has been warm. Too warm for early January. I worry, of course, about the bees that are tucked away in their hives. Too warm, and the queens will begin to lay eggs (brood). This would lead to more mouths to feed and the chance of food-stores being burned through too quickly; extra winter feeding on our part would be needed else we run the risk of having bees starve and die.

We are hoping to make a nearly-all cane sugar fondant for winter feeding. The recipe is ultra simple: water, granulated cane sugar, and cane syrup. 2:½:2 = Two cups of granulated sugar; ½ cup of water; 2 tablespoons of syrup. This should scale linearly. You will also need waxed paper or butchers' paper for which to put the finished product as well as a candy thermometer to gauge the stage of the product while it boils.

Put all ingredients into a sauce pan or appropriately sized vessel; put the pan over medium heat with a lid. Dissolve all the granulated sugar and bring the mixture to a boil for 2 to 3 minutes.

Remove the lid, and using the thermometer, heat until things are at 240 degrees F (116 degrees C). Pour the liquid onto the waxed paper or butchers' paper and let cool for a few minutes; long enough to start to stiffen. When it is cool enough to be touched, you can work it into the shape you would need.

We like to sometimes fill empty honey super frames with the fondant. It makes for easy handling and easy deployment.

Unfortunately, I will be away for the weekend; no checking the hives this week and no whomping up fondant. Perhaps a midweek whomping and a feeding next weekend.

We did, however, do a small bit of whomping with almond oil, jojoba oil, beeswax, a bit of rosemary oil and water; we made lip balm. It turned out quite well. Very simple. Recipe for another day.

Honey & Bee season has closed. The Ahrens' bee-yard was winterized a week or two ago, and the hive (yes, singular) here in Proctor was winterized yesterday. On the honey production curve, when looking at the number of hives that we had going into the summer versus the honey produced at the end, it would be seen as a terrible year. The caveats abound, however. We generally do not pull honey from new, first year hives; that would have ruled out eleven hives. We did have a bit of a swarming issue with our experimental Russian bees, and I hope to detail that in a separate post. In the end, we harvested sixty pounds (27.2 kg) of honey from our two hives at the Proctor bee-yard.

Prior to just a few days ago, winter was no where to be seen; the snow, frost and freezing daytime temperatures were stuck to the north of us in Canada. We had been taking advantage of the oddly nice (by our standards) weather. We were in a sort of weather purgatory; it was nice out, but it would have been great to be nicer but it is not going to stay this nice very long. By January-weather-standards, this sunny and 50 degrees F (10 degrees C) is fantastic, but the recent weather was much like April weather; while we are able to comfortably work outdoors with a light shirt, jeans and regular shoes (no boots), it was still dropping below freezing at night. I look at photos of the yards, and of the grass and foliage from June, and all are lush and deep green; a deep green color that only comes with countless "applications" of nitrogen rich urea from the hounds. With daylight each day, getting shorter by minutes, we leave for our day jobs in the dark, and arrive back home in the dark. This arrangement is not conducive for working outdoors and often results in worm tunneling around with a flashlight in the dark trailing hounds in an attempt to keep up with their "deposits". I have been tending to sit inside, with a hot cup of coffee and my laptop.

When the cold weather arrives, I tend to tinker with this or plan for spring about that. Spring seed catalogs have started arriving in the mail, as well. But, the recent nice weather did allow for a very strange sight: gardening, in northern Minnesota, in mid-November. We actually put in another garden.

There had been fencing around a row of grapevines, but having since removed a large, ramshackle compost bin from one end of the stretch, the hounds had found ways of getting into the vineyard area. This was unacceptable. Three feet (one meter) out from the wire fence, we sunk new fence posts into ground and secured them in concrete. We stretched new wire fencing, and fill the new enclosure with black dirt. With a couple hundred crocus and allium bulbs on hand, Melissa set to work making a nice flower-border that should look nice in the spring.

As the honey & bee season closed out, a new, hopefully continuous season started: eggs. The chickens started to lay last week, and are currently at a plateau of four eggs per day.

When I started keeping my own bees and not just following another beekeeper, I was rough with the bees. Heavy-handed frame shaking, accidental drops, poor use of the smoker, and a general manhandle-management style. A few pointers and tips from more experienced keepers helped, but by the end of the season as a solo beekeeper, I had been stung nearly three dozen times. I came to call my laissez-faire style of beekeeping fast and loose; go in quickly, and wreck-up-the-place. Comb in the wrong place - tear it out; if bees got in the way of putting on the outer-cover, they would get crushed. I realized, at the end of last season, this fast and loose approach was not very conducive to a well thought-out approach that would be more my style.

I mentioned, in a previous post, that I had reread Ross Conrad's Natural Beekeeping: Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture. It continues to a be an excellent resource for ideas on how to not only manage bees in a less harsh-chemical-way, but as a resource for how to interact with your bees in a more holistic and balanced approach.

Conrad mentions that in order to truly understand and appreciate honeybees, you need to be closer to them. He goes so far as to keep his bees without a bee-suit and with out gloves. Baby steps, Alex, baby steps. I happen to be systemically allergic to honeybee venom (and even more so, vespid or wasp venom). I realized something maybe wrong last season when I was stung on my foot and my leg partly swelled. Then, on the day we were leaving for Eastern Apicultural Society's annual event, I was stung on the face and ear. By the next day, I was at urgent care in River Falls, Wisconsin. My face, ear, and neck were swollen and my throat became very itchy. Later, toward the end of last year, I began allergy shots. Since beginning the venom therapy, my tolerance for stings has greatly increased. This has allowed me to slowly work toward being more in sync with my bees.

Baby steps, Alex, baby steps. Being closer to the bees is very important - awareness of heat rising from within an open hive; you cannot feel heat very well with gloves on. With gloves, you feel sort of invincible. You can be clumsy and not worry about getting a fist of angry bee-backsides in your skin. Take the gloves, and you immediately become closer to your bees. You become careful. You slow down.

That is my baby step. Taking off my gloves. I no longer wear gloves while tending my bees for this simple reason - it makes me much more careful. You can feel the bees walk across the back of your hands, across your palms and down your fingers. It makes one operate in a deliberate, and purposeful manner. I have been stung on my hands; it still hurts, but I am always able place the answer on why I was stung. Usually, it is because I was not paying attention to the bee walking across my palm or fingers. This maybe my only step this season; I do enjoy the comfort and mental security that my beesuit provides.

I feel going gloveless is an all around win. Going slowly and deliberately, means fewer crushed bees and fewer bees that have stung, this mean less defensive-scent in the air. This equates to calmer bees. Calm bees are a joy to work.

If you recall, Hive #10, which previously had the issue of being queenless, is now with-Queen. What happened, you ask?

I had ordered a new Russian queens from the same outfit in Kentucky we had previously ordered both queens and packages of bees from, but, unlike my region of Minnesota, which was experiencing nighttime temperatures in the middle 30s F (single digits C), Kentucky was experiencing daytime temperatures of 90+ degrees F (low to middle 30s C). The company would not ship the queens because of the heat. I was just forced to wait it out.

In the mean time, I transferred two full frames of capped brood from two Russian hives located at the other bee yard. The frames were nearly full out to the edges and even contained two or three capped queen cells (why the workers in those two hives felt it necessary to make new queens is not really known - since removing the frames from those hives, the workers have not repeated this action).

With a post-new-frames-inspection, it appeared that, in addition to the two or three queen cells that were present, the workers had started to transform at least two other cells into queen cells, but abandoned the construction mid-way to completion.

Usually, a hive, in need of a queen, will produce multiple queens simultaneously - all will separately mate, and return to the hive. Once in the hive, it is a Thunderdome-style showdown between the queens. The queen who survives will be the hive's egg-layer.

I have never really seriously smoked cigarettes. There was a brief time in high school where I hung around with several foreign exchange students who all smoked. I would have a cigarette now and again and my cigarettes of choice were Marlboros, but the habit never stuck. I found the activity boring and awful tasting. There were times in college that would have a cigarette here or there - mostly while out having a drink with friends.

Cigarettes' presentation, place in society as well as ingredients have varied widely over the years. Even between countries, packaging can vary. While at Iceland's Reykjavik International Airport several years ago, I wandered into the duty-free shop. I was presented with a wall of northern European beers, and in the middle of the store, stacked neatly, were cartons of cigarettes. On the packaging were color photos of diseases and disorders linked to tobacco smoking. During the 1920s, in the United States, American Tobacco Company (now part of British American Tobacco) marketed their Lucky Strike brand as a way for women to stay healthy and thin (see The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product That Defined America).

Recently, I was rereading Ross Conrad's Natural Beekeeping: Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture, and I came across something that I had completely forgotten - a USDA study suggesting that smoke from grapefruit leaves, creosote bush or tobacco may have a negative affect on varroa mites but have minimally adverse affects on the bees. Grapefruit trees certainly do not grow outdoors in northern Minnesota, and creosote bushes are found in the desert southwest - again, not northern Minnesota-material.

Tobacco, on the other hand, is relatively ubiquitous. Although, it is not grown in northern Minnesota, or Minnesota in general in any commercially-sized operations, it is available in cigarette, pipe, cigar and smokeless forms. Ross Conrad specifically mentioned Natural American Spirit Cigarettes.

American Spirits are somewhat unique in that they are made from organic and sustainably grown tobacco, and just tobacco (not counting paper or filter). Aside from containing tobacco that may have been sprayed with pesticides, most other brands of cigarettes contain fun things like cocoa and carob powder, ammonium hydroxide, bergamot oil (think Earl Grey tea), geranium rose oil, glycerol, licorice extract, rose oil, high fructose corn syrup, and a hodgepodge of various butyls and methals - things that end in hexane like trimethylcyclohexane and many weak organic acids (as opposed to strong, inorganic acids like hydrochloric or sulfuric).

The idea behind the use of tobacco and its smoke to mitigate varroa mites is pretty simple - knock the varroa off the honeybee's body. The second part of the equation is to prevent the mites from being able to get back onto a new host.

The tobacco smoke is supposed to do the knocking off part by causing the mites to lose their grip on the host bee through disorientation or some such thing. The exact chemical that causes the irritation to the mites is not known (and trying to find a source of information for what compounds are naturally found in natural tobacco is just a honey pot for quick ways to kick the habit).

The second part, keeping the mites from getting back on the bees, is done through the use of a screened bottom board. Basically the bottom of the hive is screened off. It has been found that varroa have difficulties evening finding the bees if more than several inches away from them. Plus, if used with a sticky board under the screen, the mites will most certainly not be able to get back up into the hive.

All that said, it is a bit of anecdotal experiment. I smirk slightly each time I purchase cigarettes. I guess I amuse easily. It is easier to just fumble at the tobacco shop while trying to say, in an-all-uncool-way, which Natural American Spirits I would like to purchase. I am quite certain that the clerk would be confused if I told him that I crumble up four cigarettes, sans-filter, along with a mixture of cherry and applewood chips in a steel bee-smoker in an attempt to dislodge the bee-equivalent of human-ticks from my colonies of honeybees.

I like to keep up with and be aware of what is occurring apiculturally in the area. Person X in this area is having queen issues, or Person Y had their top-bar hive tipped over by the wind. For the most part, these bits of information that filter in are interesting and you are able to offer the occasional tip. Other times, the information seriously piques my interest.

The Arrowhead Region of Minnesota is comprised of three counties; from west to Northeast, you have St. Louis (the county I am in), Lake, and forming the tip of the arrowhead, Cook County. Cook County's northern boundary is also the border with Canada.

Through one beekeeping group, I heard that there was a loose association of people in Cook County going by the name "Cook County Hobby Beekeepers," (now known as North Shore Hobby Beekeepers) and they were very interested in one particular hybrid race of bees: the Thunder Bay Bee Breed. The T-triple-Bs are a cross of Buckfast bees and Carniolan bees (Buckfast have a heritage that includes bees originating from Northern Italy, France, England, Turkey, Greece, and several docile races from Africa).

Through email, I corresponded with one of the originators of the T-triple-Bs, Jeanette Momot, a former apiculture inspector in the Thunder Bay region, Jeanette has worked with bees for thirty years in the Thunder Bay area, and prior to this, was a honeybee-research graduate student at Ohio State. Talking with Jeanette, via email, I found that the Thunder Bay region is quite unique with regard to apiculture and the pests that honeybees frequently have else where in the world. The uniqueness comes from part geographic isolation, part politics and part on the qui vive.

Thunder Bay and Canada, in general, are isolated from the United States simply by being separate countries. They have separate laws which govern what can be brought into one another. In 1987, Canada made a move against the Varroa destructor - the deer tick of the apiculture world. The move Canada made was an import ban on live honeybees from the United States. Since 1987, the importation ban was altered to allow certain importation from Hawaii.

Geographically, the Thunder Bay area and surrounding municipalities are in the middle of nowhere. I do say this with reverence for the area. Thunder Bay is Canada's 43rd largest city, but it is 433 miles (698 km) from Winnipeg, Manitoba, and 439 miles (707 km) from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Thunder Bay, however, is only 190 miles (303 km) from Duluth, MN, where we happen to be located.

Jeanette Momot is the force behind the vigilance in keeping varroa out. Having been the apiculture inspector for the Thunder Bay district for fifteen years, she established herself as the go-to person for things honeybee-related. She has tried very hard to keep out foreign honeybee stocks. When a package of honeybees arrives at the Thunder Bay postoffice, she is often told of the arrival and can get to work on tracking down the origins of the package. If the package originated in a region known to have varroa mites, she will make every effort to convince the package's owner to destroy the bees before possibly contaminating the local bee population. In return, she and other beekeepers will replace the destroyed package with bees from their own apiaries. She sees the move as a small price to pay to keep her bees and the rest of the bees in the region free from varroa.

Back in the States, the North Shore Hobby Beekeepers were busy planning a trip to import honeybees from Jeanette and another beekeeper, Dean Harron on June 4, 2011. I corresponded through email with several of NSHBs and managed to get my name on the list for a package of the mite-free bees. I also offered to help with the importation efforts. Have passport, will travel.

Most of the NSHBs live up the North Shore near the towns of Hovland, Grand Marais and Grand Portage. My father, a retired accountant with no penchant for bees, but a hankering for tagging along, came with for the trip. We left the Duluth-area around 7:00 am, and arrived in Grand Marais 2.1/2 hours later. We met up with others and started toward Grand Portage and the Pigeon River border crossing. The weather was perfect for our cross-border bee heist, as we called it.

Arriving at Jeanette's, the other half of the convoy had already arrived and they were busy scoping out the apiary. Ten packages would be taken from Jeanette, and ten from Dean Harron - who lives 7 km from Jeanette. The sun was out, and occasionally, the wind would drop. This is northwestern Ontario, you would think there maybe a chill in the air, but no, it was hot by my standard - 80 degrees F (26.7 C). I decided to take a chance and took off my beesuit. The heat was getting to me. I stepped back a distance and mainly took photographs. At one point, I felt like I was getting a migraine, but looking back, I was dehydrated. Two bottles of water and a bottle of Gatorade, I felt much better.

Most of the folks from NSHBs kept talking about how unique it was to have mite-free bees. I found it more interesting to have found a unique, genetic pool of bees that have been successfully overwintering for years. I am less interested in maintaining a completely varroa-free environment (if that was the case, I would have failed; hive #10 - the spicy, overwintered italians, which are now transforming into spicier russian-italians, have a small varroa population). In some future post, I will go into more detail on what I would like to ultimately achieve, in short, I want to breed my own northern-hardy bees. The gentleness of the Thunder Bay Bees is a very positive trait given the spiciness of the Russian bees (they like to head-butt your bee veil).

After Jeanette's, we headed to Dean's house and apiary. The heist there went much quicker than at Jeanette's. It was also nice to seen Dean's overwintering setup; it was composed of mostly 2" thick rigid foam insulation constructed into a large box that surrounds the hives. Top and bottom entrances were then cut into the foam to allow access for the bees.

Overall, twenty 3 lb packages were brought back into the US. We dropped off packages on our way back to the Duluth area at several of the NSHBs. It was a great adventure, and I hope to go, again, next year.

For more photos, visit here.

The weather in northern Minnesota continues to be, at best, cooler and wetter than normal. High winds have also accompanied the cold, wet weather. This has made for sporadic conditions for the bees to venture out from their homes to do their thing. It is not to say they have had zero opportunities; upon opening any of the hives - even ones that are perceived to be in a weakened state - the top bars of the frames are dusted with the bright yellow of dandelion pollen. The frames of nectar are stacking up, too, even with sporadic abilities to reach the nectar in the field.

Hive #10 has had a bit of a storied history. Started last with a package of bees originating from Chico, California, hive #10 had its first queen issue a month after installing the package. With no queen, a worker picked up the call to duty and started to lay eggs. That would be all well and good if workers could just take up the roll of a fertile queen and produce workers; instead, when a worker lays eggs, you will always get drones. Those lazy bugs that just take up space and look out of place with their enormous eyes.

A queen was ordered from Kentucky to replace the missing queen from California. The requeen on hive #10 went well, but we never did get any honey from it last season.

Hive #10 made it through winter and looked be a good candidate for being the source-hive for one or more splits (see my previous post on splits). Unknowingly, and being very new to the world of splits, the source-queen most likely made it into the new hive. This would explain why I had issues "requeening" - the new hive did not need a new queen because it had the original, older queen. On the note of having issues requeen - the new, Russian queen, was freed from her cage (this time). So, what happens with a hive with two queens? It will be a like cage fight; they will fight to the death and the stronger of the two will survive.

This leaves me with a currently strong hive in limbo because of a lack of a queen. There were numerous empty, partially constructed queen cells, but nothing that would suggest a the kingdom was about to throw off a new queen. Without a queen laying female eggs, and after sufficient time for all the existing female eggs to have gone from egg to larva to pupa to adult - there are no viable eggs to be turned into a queen. I did a bit of Internet searching and found several options for purchasing queens, but eventually wandered back to Kelley Bees (out of Kentucky). This is the same outfit that I have been getting my queens from for a while now; particularly this season.

In addition to all the queen drama, the apiary at the Ahrens is set to expand by two more hives. My beekeeping apprentice, Beth, is getting setup with her own hive. I am setting her up with a new Russian queen and several frames from a strong hive of mine. The other hive is getting bees from our neighbors to the north in Thunder Bay, Ontario. I am heading up there with a group from the Cook County (North Shore) Hobby Beekeepers on June 4, 2011. There has been considerable effort on the part of Thunder Bay Beekeepers' Association to keep their area free of mites. I hope to write more about their efforts and my adventure north of the border in another post.

I also received word from the land owners of the Ahrens yard that a neighboring farm had beef cattle and several sheep wander through the field in front of the hives; lets hope that the trail camera caught the beasts moseying along and perhaps the ensuing, Benny Hill-like persuit.

The story of our attempt to split and install a queen from our overwintered hygienic Italians seemed to keep taking twists. For those unfamiliar with what a "split" (each niche activity has its own nomenclature; apiculture is no different) is and what is involved in a successful split, here is a bit of a run down...

The queen runs the show. She kicks off pheromones all while she is laying eggs in empty comb cells. There is only one queen in each hive, but there are thousands of workers at any given time in a strong hive. Traditional Langstroth-style hives (the variety we use) have individual frames (think folders in a filing cabinet). There are multiple boxes (as can be seen in many of our photos), each box contains (most often) ten frames. In a split, you take four frames from a strong, overwintered hive (making sure you do not have the queen), and putting them into the middle of another, bee-less box. You pad out remaining space in the box with empty frames. The frames you pulled from the strong hive should have: (a) plenty of workers, (b) plenty of capped larvae, (c) plenty of pollen, (d) plenty of capped honey. In addition to the empty/bee-less box, the strong overwintered hive, and the empty frames for padding, you will most likely need a new queen. We have been getting queens from a place in Kentucky. You can go without a fresh, new queen - you can allow the hive to develop a new queen on its own.

This method usually takes a bit longer, and has other risks involved - swarming likelihood as well as the possibility of a drone-laying-worker. We pick the new queen from Kentucky option. Once you have the hive box with the full frames of brood, bees and goodness installed, you are ready to put your queen into the hive. The queens from the place in Kentucky come in the deluxe cage - corks are both ends with a large piece of candy already installed. The candy is exposed to the workers in the hive when the cork is removed. This way, the queens pheromones can start to spread through the hive while being protected in the cage - all the while the workers are slowly removing the candy and eventually allowing the queen to exit the cage and begin to do her egg-laying duties. The cage with the queen is most often "pinched" between two of the middle frames toward the top of the frames.

With that explanation, that is how it should work and usually does work. But, occasionally, things do not work out; which is what happened with the first attempt to queen the split hive.

Two weeks ago, friend Theresa, from Fifth Avenue Farm, had a bit of a panic and in a worry that one of her queens had failed, she ordered a queen from Kentucky. On closer inspection, her queen was there and doing just fine. We offered to take the new queen when it arrived as we were planning a split.

Thursday of last week rolled around and Theresa called; the queen had arrived. Back in Proctor, we made the split and installed the queen in her cage (as outlined above). We then left for Michigan and the hound fundraiser.

Once back in Minnesota, we checked the acceptance of the new queen in the split: fail.

The cage was sitting on the bottom board of the hive, no workers around it, and the queen with the handful of workers that came with her were all dead. We immediately anthropomorphized the situation: it had to be a coup d'état.

"A new queen from a foreign land comes to the kingdom expecting to rule the land for many generations only to be knifed by a close attendant. The kingdom realizes their new ruler is dead and kills the killers."

What exactly went wrong will never be known. The queen may have been weak, the cage may have simply fallen from the top and with the unusually cold temperatures and the hive entrance directly in front of where the cage was found - the queen may have simply gotten too cold. Workers can "revolt" against a weak queen; they will form a ball around her, and raise her core temperature until she is basically cooked (hell of a way to die, is it not?). This, however, usually will occur when new queen cells (called supersedure cells) are present; we did not see any in the split-hive when we pulled the dead queen out.

Another queen was ordered, a Russian this time, and she arrived and was installed on Thursday (May 19, 2011). As it is currently raining, we wait for a break in the weather to give the progress a check. Let's hope the queen install was successful this time.