7-29-2011

Went down to Beachland late in the day today.  The bees had been through one full feeder by Wednesday and apparently it only took them two days to suck down another feeder by today as there was NO sugar water in the feeder.  Amazing how quickly the bees are going through the sugar water.  Anyway, some additional comb has been drawn out.  There are still two frames on the ends that have not been drawn out.  The second frames in from the end are in the process of being drawn out.  But things are coming along nicely and lots of bees are hatching every day.  Looks like we might need the second deep frames soon afterall. We replaced the sugar water (with honey B healthy) in the feeder and even found the queen again too! Caught a few good pictures (below).

7-24-2011 Checking the hive for progress

Mom and dad were in Richmond and were headed down to Mathews today... so I hitched a ride.  It had been a full two weeks since the last hive check and I wanted to make sure they weren't getting too crowded and threatening to swarm.  It looks like they did a pretty good job drawing out a sixth comb and were starting (just a bit) on a seventh.  The first five frames were all just about completely drawn out.  Also, I wanted to flip the entrance reducer around to allow more of an entranceway for the bees to get in and out... since they had only the smallest opening for the first few months.  The other thing I wanted to do was add a more substantial feeder and try to use some HoneyBHealthy in the sugar syrup.  I'll continue to feed them through the fall since they're still getting their numbers up.

Bottom line:  We saw the queen first hand (didn't get any good close up photos of her this time though) and she appears to be doing a fine job of laying eggs.  There were quite a few bees in the hive and quite a few more on the way.   It's likely that they will need a new deep hive body with more frames to fill out within the next two or three weeks.  So far.... so good.


                                Lots of capped brood getting ready to hatch.

                                  Growing larva in the center of this frame.

                                   It seems like a spotty laying pattern, but
                                   I think they may just be hatching intermittently.

                             Some open cells from brood that's recently hatched.

                                Fairly recently drawn out comb. Some brood

                             Very new drawn comb with very small eggs.  Nice Job!

7-9-2011 Quick Check of the hive

Stopped by the local honey stand in downtown Mathews Va today and had a nice chat with Billy of Billy's Bees.  He mentioned that at this late date in the season it is unlikely the bees will be drawing out much more comb.  Unfortunately, since the supersedure, I probably have as much drawn comb as I'm going to get.


When I got to the hive and used some smoke I thought things would go normally.  However, when I pried the telescopic and top cover off  the hive, I noticed the bees buzzing quite loud.  They started flying around me unlike any time in the past.  I am thinking some of the brand new bees are the product of some cranky drones.   At any rate, the outer four frames still appeared to be untouched.  But I was nervous enough that I didn't do an inspection of the inner (brood) frames.  I'll probably have to come back to this sometime soon.  Needless to say, I'll be bringing long pants and a long sleeve shirt next time.  There did appear to be quite a few bees working the hive.. so hopefully things are on the upswing.

Saturday 7-2-2011 Found the Queen!!

After a few weeks of no visits to the hive.... and worrying about whether the hive had successfully superseded their queen, we were rewarded today with a direct witnessing of the queen doing her job.   The picture above shows a nice shot of the queen in the center of the frame.  It was fun watching her lay a few eggs.  Also,  there were quite a few larvae in the cells and we should have a nice boost in the population in the next few weeks.  It's a good feeling knowing the colony is just delayed rather than headed for disaster.

I noticed there were still only about two frames mostly drawn out.  Two more were about half drawn out and the rest in the deep hive body were almost completely untouched.  I was hoping things would have progressed well beyond this point by now, but at least the hive appears to be on the right track.

On another note, I opted not to use the veil which turned out to be ok since the colony is still pretty small.... but I need to get out of this practice as things will probably heat up once things get into full swing.  Although my daughter really liked the beekeeper garb.  She's the one sporting the veil and gloves in the picture above.  Maybe we have another budding beekeeper on our hands ;)