5 weeks since the hive landed, and it's doing great. Next week the first foraging bees who came from eggs laid here should emerge. Exciting.
Today we opened up all 3 boxes and went through all but 2 frames before charlie was called away.
We saw the queen, but didn't take pictures. Watched her lay a couple of eggs. Very cool.
The foundationless frames in the top box are still untouched, and the bees are starting to draw out the 2 frames that DO have foundation. Fine by me.
In the middle box, all of the foundationless frames are being drawn out, between 15 and 80% done. Average is probably around 60% drawn out. That's good news.
In the hive body, i was able to scrape wax and jostle all the frames apart enough to add a 10th frame. It's totally foundationless, and I didn't add any guides or anything. We'll see how it goes next week. Might have to retry that one. It's between 2 brood combs, so hopefully it'll get drawn out nice and straight.
No stings and not even any angry bees that I saw. Love this hive.
-tmk
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Inspection report Sep. 6, 2010
A local beekeeper named 'Fuzzy' came by and did most of the work. I learned a bunch of stuff just watching him do his thing.
We went through the top 2 supers, and found:
* the empty foundationless frames in the top super are basically untouched.
* the bees have drawn out a little over 2 frames in the first super
* my frame spacing was still terrible. not sure how that happened, i thought sure we had set it up right last time. Oh well.
* the top bar is pretty much full of honey, with a little drone brood sprinkled in.
* We have 'bee space' issues, probably caused by mixing/matching of frame types (some plastic, some wood), this means that they will be building burr comb to plug gaps into which they don't fit well
* the queen cell from last week looks partially torn down, and empty - no queen in there.
* put a sticky board under the hive for about a day, and caught 37 mites. Not usually considered a problem worth treating until it's over 50 in 24 hrs.
* dead bee quantity is normal
* hive is pretty strong. All is well.
* No stings!
We went through the top 2 supers, and found:
* the empty foundationless frames in the top super are basically untouched.
* the bees have drawn out a little over 2 frames in the first super
* my frame spacing was still terrible. not sure how that happened, i thought sure we had set it up right last time. Oh well.
* the top bar is pretty much full of honey, with a little drone brood sprinkled in.
* We have 'bee space' issues, probably caused by mixing/matching of frame types (some plastic, some wood), this means that they will be building burr comb to plug gaps into which they don't fit well
* the queen cell from last week looks partially torn down, and empty - no queen in there.
* put a sticky board under the hive for about a day, and caught 37 mites. Not usually considered a problem worth treating until it's over 50 in 24 hrs.
* dead bee quantity is normal
* hive is pretty strong. All is well.
* No stings!
Thursday, September 2, 2010
fun bee fact
Kevin, in his hours [upon hours!] of bee newsgroup reading, ascertained that the bees that languish on the ground in front of the hive is not, er, normal.
It means we have a mite problem.
Like bee fleas. Too many bee fleas.
But the mite treatment, way more fun that squirting on Frontline--
Treatment: dust the bees with powdered sugar!
Break out the jingle bells, because it's gonna be a white September Christmas in the bee hive.
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