It's October 29. Mid-autumn. It was 70° yesterday, and 72.8° today. The bees are flying when it's that warm, and at this time of year there is nothing left for them to eat. Or is there? I went out to the beeyard today to put another pollen patty on the hives and was pleasantly surprised to see the girls flying in with full pollen pockets. The pollen patties that I put on at the beginning of October were completely gone. I didn't want to keep the covers open for too long, as the yellow jackets were very interested in what we had going on, but the boxes were full of bees with not a drone to be seen (see the last post if you're wondering why). The video below is from today and shows some ladies hard at work cleaning, sealing cracks with propolis and bringing in food.
I've read about it. A lot. When I talk to kids about roles in the hive it's always a favorite. "What do you mean they kick out the drones? Why? The drones do nothing?!?" It's true. Drones don't do much. They mate - but not with the queen of their own hive....she's their mother! They fly up to 'drone congregating areas' and wait for a virgin queen to come by in hopes of mating with her before they die a terrible, literally gut-wrenching death. The drones just eat up honey stores, don't help with housekeeping, brood-rearing or foraging, so when the temperatures start to drop, the ladies kick them out. I'd never seen it before today. Enjoy the photos, courtesy of my photographer friend, Cas.
The population of the weak hive that I combined with a stronger one looks good; the major issue at this point is that they have no honey or pollen stored and will be fully dependent on the strong hive below them. I went out today to add winter pollen patties to the hives as added insurance. The patties contain Megabee and Honey-B-Healthy, with 2.5% protein (which is supposedly relatively low and will not stimulate brood rearing - good for winter). I've used pollen patties in the past without a shim between the patty and the inner cover and it causes everything to stick together with little room for the bees to move around. This time, I added shims to provide adequate space for the patty. The bees looked happy and were incredibly calm. SO much improved from their mood when they were being robbed two weeks earlier. I was thrilled to see pollen still coming into both hives. I also witnessed (for the first time in person) workers actively removing drones from the hive! It was incredible to watch three or four strong ladies dragging the poor fellas to the edge of the bottom board and pushing them off. One gentleman attempted to return four times while I was watching! How persistent! In the video below, you can see the girls chasing him. They start in the middle of the video frame and end in the bottom center where the entrance reducer meets the side of the bottom board. |
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