So it has been a number of months since the last update in what has been going on in the bee world of Ebert Honey LLC. This is mostly due to the fact that I started to teach European history at Mount Mercy College in Cedar Rapids, so I have spent a ton of time developing classes since the middle of August, and the blog has been neglected since then. The good news is that our bees looked really good going into the winter--Alex fed them up for the winter months and we are hoping that good survival will give us more spring bees than we have ever had before. There have been some serious cold spells this winter, so we're also hoping that not too many got caught against the lid of the hives when it was too cold to move over to more food on the adjacent frames.

As usual, I am missing the bees the further we get into winter, so it will be a happy day when spring returns and the bees are active once more! Tree pollen and dandelion honey are always a welcome sight as the year gets rolling again.

In the meanwhile, Dad (Phil) is taking orders for 2010 packages as usual. Prices aren't set yet, pending news from California, but the truck seems to fill up earlier every year. Hopefully your bees will survive in good health, but let us know if you are looking for bees to pick up in April in Lynnville! (contact info at www.eberthoney.com)

The weather says it will be 43 degrees in a couple of days--but it also says there is a 90 percent chance of precipitation, so maybe the bees won't have the chance for a flight day. Fingers crossed for a warm weather break!!!!

(My life at Mount Mercy College)

I have good news for everyone that has visited the Ebert honeyhouse: Comet, the mighty beekeeper dog, continues to thrive.

Actually, Comet tends to stay out of the way whenever bees are concerned, but he never misses the chance to run ahead of the truck when we drive to the queen yard. Then he commences to play in the creek and grass until he hears us open the door of the truck.

Luckily, there is other good news that is more related to the bees. It finally stopped being miserably cool and wet. Yes, it seems that everyone except the beekeepers were happy about seventy degree weather in July. No, it was not good for us. It was starting to look like the short honey flow at the end of June and beginning of July would represent the bulk of our crop. It would have been even worse than last year. Now we're back into the eighties and sunshine, and the bees are very busy. It's anyone's guess how long an August flow will run in our area, but there should be several more good days for most of the yards. Fingers crossed! (Toes too...)

There is not a lot of Dutch clover still in bloom compared to June and early July, but the wetness has kept some decent patches going in scattered locations.

As we begin to harvest this week, hopefully the boxes keep getting filled. Today will be the third day of honey pulling.

The other day Alex got a really good picture of what happens with laying workers:

The image shows the craziness of what goes on when a colony goes queenless for too long. Some of the workers start dropping unfertilized eggs, but they often plant several eggs in each cell. I've seen over a dozen eggs in some cells, but there are usually fewer than that. Of course the bees will abort multiple larvae in single cells--there just isn't enough space. Still, it's interesting to see three or four larvae for the short time that they are all curled into the based of a cell.

It is important, however, not to assume that anytime you see multiple eggs in a cell that it is laying workers. Young queens sometimes deposit more than one egg in a cell, and in the springtime the queen sometimes does the same thing on the fringe of the broodnest--just trying to get out more eggs than the bees can take care of at the moment. Laying workers almost never appear until all of the missing queen's worker brood has emerged.

I should really take a picture of the lumpy frames that develop when drone larvae pupate in worker cells that are too small for them. It's a mess, but not permanent--those cells will be fine for workers once there is a fertile queen.

There are two safe ways of requeening laying workers that I use. If there are a lot of bees, you can give them a queen cell and it is accepted. It is also possible to give them a new queen with a couple of frames of her own brood and bees. But trying to introduce a new mated queen in a cage is pretty risky--they usually will not accept her on her own.

Several years ago I decided it would be fun to try raising queens. My first cells were not very impressive, but I got the hang of it pretty quickly. Occasionally there is still a graft that fails, but nothing is 100% I suppose.

When I first started with mating nucs, I thought it was important to arrange the nucs in distinctive ways that would make it easier for the virgin queens to find the right home on the way back from their midair mating flights. It turned out that they know their way back home better than I ever would have guessed. Last year I had extra full-size equipment, and I got a good mating percentage on 4-way pallets sitting close together (about 80% as I recall).

Normally I do not use full-size equipment. We have a number of 4-frame nucs that I usually use. Here you can see that the two outside nucs have their entrances facing one direction, and the middle nuc is flipped around to face the other way.

I keep a few lines of nucs that were started on different batches of cells. I often mix around the different colors of nucs, but I don't find that it makes much difference in practice.

Here's a line that is all light green.

I'm not doing this on a grand scale, but it's useful to have queens on hand. It's also fun to ship them around the country--it's one of those interesting activities that never entered my mind for years and years.

Well, it's starting to feel disturbingly cool for June. It is pretty comfortable for most people to have the temperature below eighty degrees, but I start to worry about the bees. Sometimes they bring in some June honey when the temperature is in the mid-seventies. I recall a summer many years ago when it was never terribly warm, rained at night every two or three days, and the bees still managed to produce a decent crop. The recent rain hasn't just been at night however. I see some nectar coming into some of the parent colonies--even into some of the honey supers rather than the brood chambers.

In any case, the main honey flow rarely comes before July in our area. There should be a few more weeks before it's time to get really concerned. Still, I think if it warms up we could get a nice honey flow right now--every time the weather turns for the better they are really getting out on the Dutch clover. Some of the pastures look like it rained flowers on them.

Despite the relative coolness, the bees have thrived to this point. Here is an image of a heavy load of pollen with some nectar in a nice fresh comb. It is proof of their energy despite some cooler temps.