Work In Progress - Bean Harvest

© Robin Edmundson, 'Bean Harvest', watercolor.  18 x 24 inches.  

This is a current work in progress.   It might be done, but I want to let it simmer for a bit.   I got the idea from a photo I took of a bean harvest last year on the highway near Worthington, Indiana.   I had a big wide view.   Two combines and a tractor with a trailer full of beans.   And lots of dust in the air.

I did an initial draft and got some expert feedback from someone who had actually driven one of those things.   He approves of this version.

Robbing

I told you in my last post that I had combined two hives and in the process started a lot of robbing.  And these robbers were relentless. 

It's normal to see a lot of action in the front of the hives and around the entrances.  

It is NOT normal to see action all around a hive, under the hive, around the back, with bees trying to get in the seams, and bees fighting and dropping off the hive in clusters.   That's robbing behavior. 

The robbers will strip all the stores from a hive in no time flat and kill an entire hive as well.  I knew that the worst of the robbers were other honeybees, joined with a few yellow jackets and some giant bumblebees.  I just didn't know if the bees were from one of my other hives or from a feral hive or a neighbor's hive.

First rule of robbing:  Stop It Now!

What to do?   There are several options:

• robber screens
• wet blanket over entire hive
• set out feeder 100-200 yds away from the hives to lure robbers away
• close up hives completely
• open up all hives so that robbers go back home to defend
• something even more drastic if you can think of it.

I had already put robber screens on the hives as soon as we had our first hard frost and the winter dearth started. They didn't seem to be making much difference.

I put out a feeder but that had minimal effect.

I tried wet blankets and that didn't work.  The robbers went under.

I didn't want to open all the hives, because it looked like all the hives were getting robbed and that meant the robbers were mostly likely coming from another area and not my bees robbing each other.

The guys on Beemaster bee forums said to do something even more drastic, so I turned the hose on the bee yard and hosed all the hives down.

It worked.

Then I suited up completely including gloves and screened off all three hives. 

The next morning, the hives were covered with bees again and I knew for sure they were coming from outside my yard.   I left the hives completely closed with screens for a couple of days until the robbers didn't come back, and then I took the screens off late one evening so my bees could have a bathroom break and get back in without having to worry about robbing.   Robbers go home at dusk.  

Note:  Bees HATE flashlights, so if you go out and must use a flashlight around the hives, make sure you suit up completely.   I was paranoid and insisted we suit up, and boy, were we glad we did.

A couple weeks later, I put sugar and quilt boxes on all the hives.  I reduced the combined hive to a single box as fast as I could and using hive cloths to keep things covered as I worked.  By the time I was done another robbing frenzy had started and I got the hose out and took care of it.

This time the robbing was mostly centered on the combined hive, so I closed that hive up completely with screens and left the other two alone with their robber screens on. 

If there are robbers in a hive when you close it up, within three days, they either fight to the death or are forced to join the hive. If there are a lot of robbers and they join the hive, you've effectively increased the size of that hive, which would be a good thing in my case.    So I left it closed for three days.  

Things are calm now.   All hives have robber screens, extra sugar and quilt boxes on for the winter.

Let's hope they'll make it through til spring.

Fall Bees

It was a busy fall around the bee yard the past couple of months.   Two of the hives decided to requeen in late August - one of the Russians and one of the nucs.   

The Russian hive produced 27 queen cells, which we tried to make nucs with and failed, but the cell we left in the hive produced a fabulous queen and that hive is doing very nicely now.   We're overwintering it in two boxes.  

The other Russian hive is doing fine and will winter in a single box.  

The nuc with the new queen never got very big and so I decided to combine it with what had been a much stronger hive.  Unfortunately, the combine was slow because you have to find one of the queens to take her out.   I had decided to keep the new queen and it took for freaking ever to find the other.   By the time I finished the combine, there was wholesale robbing.   By the time I got the robbing under control, there were not enough stores to warrant two boxes over the winter, so I reduced them down to a single box.   Which started more robbing, which I'll talk about in the next post. 

At any rate, I'm going into winter with 3 hives this year.   I am hopeful that the two Russian hives will do OK.   The other hive is very different in demeanor and I'd be thrilled if they made it through at all, but I confess I won't be surprised if they don't. 

Bean Harvest

This time of year we're seeing clouds of what looks like smoke coming from local fields. 

It's not smoke, it's bean dust.

The combines and tractors put out a lot of debris and dust.   It's pretty interesting to watch them.

Here's a closer up pic of some of the machinery used.   It takes a fair amount of help to get things done efficiently and quickly.

That trailer is full of soybeans.