Growing Hives and Abandoned Drones

My hives are growing up. I haven't written in a while because the summer brings a lot of waiting, hoping and observation-not a lot to report on! But things are growing and changing very quickly. My days of observing my hives with no shoes on are over! All three hives have hatched at least 2 sets of babies and are growing quickly, which means that there are a lot of new kids anxious to prove their worth by stinging the guy with no shoes on!

As you can see in some of my pictures most beekeepers start out with a box with 8 or 10 frames that hang in the box. This box is called a deep super. When my deep supers got about 3/4 full I placed another deep super on top of them. When I say full, I mean that the bees have built comb on about 8 of the 10 frames. The only reason modern beekeepers use frames is to give the bees a head start on their comb and also to have an easy access to the hive and honey. Honeybees tend to move up, so the queen and hive naturally start building and laying eggs in the new deep super. They will continue to work in the bottom one also, laying eggs, hatching babies, cleaning the cells out, storing food and starting over. Looking at one of these hanging frames you would notice that the queen starts laying eggs in the center of the frame, while the outside edges of the frame would have honey and pollen stored for winter eating. Beekeepers call this part of the hive a brood. You don't take honey from this, it is completely for the bees.

So, how does one get that precious golden honey from those busy bees in the brood? I tell people that beekeeping is just a matter of manipulating the bees to do what you want them to do.

Here is how it works. When my 2 deep supers are full of brood I will put a screen over the top of my hive proceeded by another box called a shallow super or a honey super. The shallow super is just like the deep supers except half the size. There is no magic in it being smaller. The real reason the shallow super is half the size: when these supers are full of honey they can be very very heavy...someone had a good idea on making them smaller, thus lighter. In these small supers there are the same amount of frames that will be filled only with comb that has honey in it. This little screen that I put on under the shallow super is the manipulation and the secret. Since the hive naturally moves up, they will go through the screen to get to the shallow super. They begin to build comb up there but when the queen tries to get up there she realizes that she is bigger than the rest of the bees. This screen or queen excluder jails the queen to the two bottom supers so she cannot lay eggs in the top supers. The result is comb that only has honey in it. The secret is out!

As you probably figured by this time there are no or very few drones (men) left in the hive. I see a lot of dead or drunk looking ones hanging around the outside of the hive. This is because they have been kicked out and have no ability to protect themselves and don't even know how to forage for food.

I was thinking about those poor drones the other day and realized that there were times in my life that I felt exactly like a drone; helpless, useless and forgotten. Though I greatly see God's hand in the life of those little bees, I do remember that I am not a bee. I am Don; loved by God. Even if I feel or experience times that feel like I have been used up or forgotten, the truth is that I (and you) am not a drone...and for this I am very thankful!