9-1-12 Adding feed

Today, we added the plastic hive top feeders (that came with the hive boxes) to hives B and C.  Initially, we had to level out the hives a bit before filling with sugar water.  Then we put the wooden cover plates on top of the feeders before adding the telescoping cover.  Dad called on 9-2 and mentioned that the bees were able to get into the water and drown as a result of putting the wooden cover plate on top of the feeder, so he took them off and we'll see if that helps. 

In a general inspection, the hives were about in the same situation they were on the last check.  Hive A is in good shape, Hive B has some brood in the top box, and Hive C has almost nothing in the top box.  Hopefully, feeding hives B and C will help get them ready for winter.

8-18-12 Hive Check

This is a bit late, but I wanted to put in an entry for a hive check I did on 7-18.  In a nutshell, hive A was in really good shape.  Lots of capped honey in the top box and lots of bees coming and going.  Hive B was not in as good a shape, but still had some capped brood in the top box and most of the frames had been drawn out.... Although not any capped honey to speak of.  Hive C didn't really have much of any activity in the top box and hardly any of the frames had been drawn out.

At this point a decision was made that I'd need to come back and add feeders to hives B and C.  Since I didn't take any honey from hive A, I'm just going to let them go with the honey they harvested themselves and forgo any feeding for now.

6-2-2012 Hive Check

In a nutshell, Hive A did not have any activity in the honey super... but more disconcerting.... this hive appears to be queenless.  There was some capped brood and older larva, but I didn't see ANY eggs in the bottom box. I need to figure out what to do about this one.  In retrospect, I should have probably have taken a frame of eggs from one of the other hives and put it into this hive so they could make another queen.

Hive B looked to be in better shape, there are sill a couple of the "botched" frames.  This one had all but one frame with drawn comb. So I added another deep hive body to this one.

The second hive body on hive C had only four frames that did not have drawn comb.  These bees have been very prolific.... and I decided to go ahead and add a honey super to this one (with the queen excluder and Imrie shim).  

5-20-2012 Adding boxes

It wasn't a great day for beekeeping in Mathews... Overcast and somewhat windy, but the nucleus hive (hive C) was busting at the seams in their single deep hive body.  Also, I was able to clean up hive B a bit.  It seems like my fix is starting to take hold and although there are a couple frames that are still pretty messy, the bees are starting to fill out the other frames the way I was hoping they would.  The biggest hive (hive A) is still taking their time moving into the honey super.  I read on the internet about an Imrie shim.  I added this shim just above the queen excluder in hopes of encouraging the bees into the honey super.  Hopefully that will work! 

5-6-2012 Hive Check

Dad and I went down to Mathews today to check on the hives.  The first hive looked ok, but there weren't any bees in the honey super and they hadn't drawn out any of the comb in the top box.... Also, there were a bunch of ants on the top cover board.... So we hit it with a bunch of cinnamon.  Hopefully that will take care of the ants.

In the third hive (nucleus started) the bees have filled out a couple more frames, but are still well short of 8 full frames, so I decided not to add the second deep hive body. 



On the second hive (started from a package back in April) I realized that letting the bees continue to build comb where they wanted was a colossal mistake.  I had to essentially do a cut-out and try to salvage the comb with the most brood by attaching it to frames without comb and hope the bees will "build out" those bits of comb.  As for the rest of the comb, I basically put the pieces into an empty  deep hive body on top of the original box and filled it with newspaper to prevent them from adding anything else to those bits of comb.  I'm feeling pretty bad about this one, but maybe they'll bounce back. 

 Note that the comb in these pictures are not in frames.... That's not a good thing. 

 They didn't start building on the frames as quickly as I'd hoped.  They just kept building on this comb... and it's gotten to the point where I had to do something since I could barely get the top cover off.  When I did, I broke a bunch of comb.

What a mess... Hopefully they'll make it despite my lousy beekeeping skills.

4-21-2012 Installing the Nuc from RockHillHoneyBeeFarm

Jerry from Rock Hill Honey Bee Farm up in Stafford was nice enough to let me pick my Nuc up last evening... which saved me quite a bit of driving.  So today, I decided to go ahead and get the bees into a new box down at Mathews.  Before that, I checked on the first hive... I saw a few bees in the honey super, but they still haven't done too much in the way of drawing out the comb.  Hopefully this will come soon.

The second hive was still a mess... But it looked like the bees had started drawing out the frames. 

Finally, I installed the new nucleus hive.  This is quite a bit quicker than installing a package.  I might have to consider getting nucs more often in the future.

4-14-2012 Checking on second hive and dusting the first

It had been two weeks since the second package install, so it was time to check on things.  I was in for a surprise, but dad had given me a bit of a preview.  The good news was that the bees seemed to have some comb built, and there were eggs in the comb.  The bad news was that NONE of the frames had been built on.  ALL the comb had been built in hive top feeder... attached to the inner cover.  See the pictures for the detail.  Anyway, my solution was to remove enough comb so that I could get the cover onto the top of the deep hive body.... with as many frames in the box as possible.  In this way, hopefully the bees will start drawing out the comb on the frames... and I can get rid of the other pieces of comb later.  I'll chalk this up to a rookie mistake of putting the hive top feeder on way too soon... and not using newspaper to prevent them building in the space in the feeder.  Note that in the pictures the comb is only built on one half of the hive cover.  This is because the hive top feeder is split into two sections.  I removed 4 of the deep hive body frames to accommodate the existing comb. 

The other (first) hive seemed to be doing well... and I was able to locate the queen.  I did see some queen cups, and a supersedure cell... but it seems way too early to start worrying about swarms just yet.  Besides, I have a honey super on this hive, so the bees can't complain that there isn't enough room to expand.   I tried the powdered sugar dusting to help the bees combat veroa mites.  In a previous inspection, I had seen a couple bees with deformed wings... which the books say is associated with a Varoa infestation.  Hopefully the sugar dusting helped.

3-30-2012 Package Install

I picked up a package and new hive from VABeeSupply on Wednesday.  I wanted to get these bees in a new box, so I went down to Mathews.  Dad was kind enough to man the camera and help get the site prepped.  We videoed the event... Unfortunately, this install was not quite as uneventful as the one last year, but I managed to get away with only one sting.  In retrospect, I think this was really just a fluke... since the sting was on my forearm (underneath the long sleeve shirt).  At any rate, there is another hive down in Mathews county now.  The only concern is how close the hives are,  but we can move the new one later (at night) if it becomes an issue.  I was going to try to get into the first hive, but should probably have done that before the install.

3-23-2012 Hive Body reversal and honey super

With the weather being so warm, it made sense to check the hive and do some maintenance.  I've read that it's a good idea to switch the upper and lower hive bodies in spring to encourage the queen to start moving into the less occupied.  I also decided to add a queen excluder and honey super.... although it might have been a bit premature.  Some pictures below show the frames as I went through the box.

 One frame from the top box without too much going on.

 A frame close to the edge of the box.

 A frame with a decent brood pattern, looks like the center eggs have hatched recently. Capped honey in the upper corners.

 Some interesting wax being built on the bottom of this frame.  Doesn't look like queen cups though.

 Close up of some capped brood.

 Fairly new comb with what looks like drone cells.

 A peek down into the lower brood chamber.  There weren't quite as many bees in this box... and definitely not as much brood.  The bees definitely were "mostly" in the upper box.  I decided to swap the boxes to encourage them to lay more eggs in this box.

Looking through the frames in the lower box.

 Swapped upper and lower brood chambers..... and a honey super on top

3-10-2012 Adding some Sugar Syrup ...

Went down to Mathews again to feed the bees seeing as how warm it's been and not a whole lot is blooming yet.  There was some activity.... but it was interesting to take the cover off the hive and see the crowd at the top of the box.  In the picture below, you can see a  bunch of young fuzzy bees hanging out in the slot leading to the feeder.  They now have a gallon or so of sugar water to get started.

2-24-2012 Hive check

It's been quite a while since I last checked on the hive.  Since I was in Mathews anyway to get some car repairs done at Haskin's Bayside Collision, it seemed like a good idea to check on the hive.  The weather was very warm for February with a bit of a breeze.  We didn't open anything up but the top cover.... but saw lots of  bees coming and going and laden with pollen.  It's amazing that it's still February and there was pollen already being harvested.  I'm guessing Dandelions and maybe even Daffodils.  At any rate, Dad loaned me his Ipod and I took some quick video of the hive. I'm looking forward to getting another hive going this spring... and encouraging this hive to produce some honey.

Video of the hive check

Sorry about the aspect ratio, I forgot that the Ipod needs to be held in landscape mode to get a full screen.