Ghost Hive, mob violence, and autumn harvest

     A part of my daily routine is to walk up to the farm (a very short walk - I'm only on 2.62 acres) for three key purposes: to let Kona, my loyal canine sidekick, take care of business (less land mines in the backyard), inspect the garden and harvest (at this time this includes peppers, cucumbers, yellow zucchini, and the slowly ripening tomatoes), and to inspect the beehives. This past week after the first two items were taken care of, I walked around to the front of the hives to check out the bee activity.  With the warm dry weather we've been having, the bees are still foraging. All the hives had activity at their entrance, save one, where the absence of any bees was readily noticeable. It was hive number three of the original five hives (three more were added as I caught my own swarms) and as it sits in the middle, its inactivity was particularly highlighted. I walked around the back of the hive and lifted the outer cover, fully expecting to see bees through the hole that is in the middle of the inner cover and perhaps some bees hanging out between the two covers. I found four dead bees on the inner cover and saw no activity through the hole. What I found upon lifting the cover and separating the supers was: about a dozen bees in the upper super, no bees in the main hive body, absolutely no honey, lots of cells with pollen, no brood cells, and perhaps more curious...no dead bees!

We've all heard tales of ghost ships that are found floating at sea with no captain and crew anywhere in sight and no clues to their fate. Here I was with a ghost hive. Now I consider myself to be fairly logical and analytical, but here is a mystery I have not been able to solve. I must state up front that I am hardly a bee expert as this is my first year of beekeeping.  And, it may turn out that when I explain my findings at November's Willamette Valley Beekeeping Association meeting, the answer may be readily apparent to those who have multiple years experience keeping bees. 
     But I am baffled. The bees had to disappear sometime in the last few weeks. As I said, I walk to view my hives on at least a daily basis and this was the first time I noticed anything strange.  I also treated my hives for mites in the past three weeks and the hive was active and full of bees during that time.  When hives swarm its usually due to congestion and only half the hive leaves, leaving brood and especially queen cells for the hatching of a new queen.  Sometimes in the absence of a queen, one of the worker bees will begin laying; but as she is unmated the eggs are unfertilized and only capable of  producing drones.  I found almost no bees and zero brood.  If the bees had been starved or stricken by some mass illness I would have found dead bees.  Again, I found none. 
     My best guess is that I inadvertently killed the queen during the honey harvest in late August, early September.  The brood produced before her demise may all have hatched and there were no replacement queen cells (which seems somewhat unlikely, but possible).  The bees dwindled in number and the honey in the hive was robbed by other colonies. OR, the hive swarmed and the bees left in the hive did not hatch another queen, and the hive died out for the same reasons and the honey was robbed?  I may not ever really know...but it makes for a good mystery story.

MOB MENTALITY

     The story, however, does not end quite there.  Now I had to decide what to do with the empty hive.  What I decided was to put the boxes into storage for next spring and use the top outer and inner covers along with the bottom board on a hive on which I had improvised those pieces with my own construction during the time my bees were swarming and I had run out of  any extra hive components.  Wearing a one piece tyvek suit to cover my shorts and short sleeve shirt, along with a veil and gloves, I picked up the hive which consisted of two mediums boxes plus my constructed top and bottom boards.  I thought I was safe as it was just a few feet away and the bees, for the most part, would be contained in the hive.  I didn't see the bees come out of the hive as I was moving it, but within seconds they were swarming my legs and easily found their way underneath the tyvek pant legs to my bare ankles.  Besides pain, the stings contain an alarm pheromone which invites more bee stings.  It was violence inciting more violence.  The mob had turned ugly.

     For those of you who have ever watched an old western, it was akin to the part in the movie where the hapless farmer comes into town and is harassed by hired gunslingers.  In order to strike fear into the farmer's heart and drive him off his land or goad him into a gunfight, they make him dance by shooting their revolvers at his feet.  Before I started my dance, I had to set the hive down gently and walk several yards behind the hives where I proceeded to frantically brush the bees off my legs.  By the time is was all finished I sustained about a dozen stings divided equally between  both ankles.  After "two stepping" I retreated to the house to remove all the stingers and to throw on a pair of jeans, stuffing the legs into long socks before returning to finish stacking the boxes on their new bottom board and replace the top cover.
    That night as Aleve and benadryl helped ease my way to sleep, I sent out a wish into the universe that the improvements to the hive also improve the surly disposition of its tenants.

     

AUTUMN HARVEST

     My peppers, like the tomatoes, have been slow to mature this year but they are finally making their way out of the garden and into the kitchen.  While the plants of both the Serrano and the Anaheim are smaller than last years, the number of peppers per plant hasn't seemed to diminish much.  My current plan is to use both types of peppers, most of my green tomatoes along with my recently harvested honey to make chutney.   I'll let you know how it turns out.
     What's not to love about Fall?