January 12, 2011

One of the pests of beehives in south Florida are the marine toads, Bufo marinas.  These toads can get as big as a dinner plate and they have a voracious appetite.  Many people find them munching on their pets dog food if the food bowl is left out of doors.
In a bee hive the toad will sit by the hive entrance and consume mass quantities of foraging bees entering or leaving the hive.  The picture below depicts a dissected toad where I found the remains of 45 bees in its stomach.

One means of defense against the marine toad is elevating your hives to get out of their reach.  This helps but the toads have been found on top of 55 gallon drums so it isn't a complete solution.  I keep my hives on top of three cinder blocks as a precaution.

 Check your bee yard after dark when the toads come out to feed to determine if marine toads are a problem in your area.  If you find them capture them and dispose of them before they decimate your hives.

January 8th, 2011 Hive Inspection

Had an opportunity to go into my hives today since the sun was out and it was 74 degrees F.  I was pleased to see nectar stored in one hive and capped honey in all three hives.  The hive I obtained from a cutout was beginning to build new comb on top of their original comb.  They never seem to build comb where I want them to build comb.  You can see the small piece of burr comb halfway doen the the left side of the frame which is the top of the frame.

The bees started to climb out on top of the frames in the super to investigate what I was doing. 

I have been feeding this hive since the end of November and I gave them a frame of capped honey from one of my other hives in December.  There were small hive beetles on the capped honey when I inspected the hive today bet they were not in such great numbers that I found it necessary to bring out my small hive beetle vacuum trap.  I'll look in on them again next weekend weather permitting.

The Master Beekeeping Program March 10th, 2011 and Bee college March 11th and 12th, 2011 will be held in Marineland Florida.  These are two great programs presented by the Univeristy of Florida Honey Bee Research and Evaluation Lab http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/honeybee/  Check out their web site and register for the two programs if you can be in north Florida on those dates.