June 20 2018

Went in quickly to add a honey super to the Southside high that was the Nook. It's built out nicely. There's a photograph that shows three different super frames all have been rubbed down with five Strokes on each side of a beeswax Patty to see if that encourages the bees to move upstairs. The older Southside high that was Tracy's is putting up just a little bit of Honey hardly anything at all. The might seem to be under control when I went to the north side of things I decided to move the baby nuk to the newsstand location and so to make sure it was able to find its place I put a branch in front of it. There's a photograph to tonight we will move both of the other hives. Neither one of them are really putting any honey up in the Super's yet. The Westside North Hive looks good so I took a frame of mixed brewed eggs and food and put it in the small nuk that seems to be suffering. The blue Hive on the northeast side has good population but again no one's putting up and eat nectar to speak of just supplies they need. Again mites look under control so I think I'm going to wait until we return from New York to do my summer treatment, just in case they decide to put up something while we're away. There is some white wax that's been built on the strongest Northwest Hive but other than that nothing really is happening. I'm hoping that by rubbing the beeswax on some of these super frames it will encourage the bees to move up into the Super's. We'll see. I've also planned to do a Mite count on Thursday morning if I can get a new beekeeper out here to work it with me we'll see.

July 13 2018 - Hot!

Boy, oh boy, is it hot. 

I came out to check the hives at 9:30am.  took me an hour to go through all of them. I'm not going to give a hive by hive report just to say that the treatment is still in. It seems to be effective the queens are laying but at a slower rate. 

There was uncapped brood, larvae and capped brood; good supplies but no extra supplies -- maybe half a frame of capped honey in the stronger hives. 

I'm going to start feeding and put on supers with the intention of forcing them to build out foundation. That should mean having extra room for the queens to lay once the treatment winds down and the queen start producing again. 

There'll be no queen excluders. 

I'm taking some frames from the stronger hives and put them into the nuc and bring the nuc out to 10 frames. That will give me five full hives going into the fall. 

I will feed them between now and the time that the goldenrod starts coming in. Hopefully, the bees will store sufficient supplies. 

When the fall comes, I'll push them all back down into their 10 frame boxes. I will merge weaker ones with stronger queens. 

I may try a fall re-queen or I may try to have them raise their own queensm but only if therecare sufficient drones. 

The nature of all these bees is very calm so I think I've got some good stock if I can get some good genetics mixed in. 

The Amitraz is scheduled to be removed on July 23rd. I've got the option to check the hives one more time between now and then. I may wait till next week that'll be the 20th to put on the frames. I'll feed them this week and then put on the supers with some wax strips so they can draw out new comb on everything.

May 17 2018 - Annual Inspection time with Steven Cutts

West Hive - the one that Michele gave me
Even with your cappings and wax you're going to get some gum.
it's not on there looking for a friend with the least amount of bridging in here it's going to be difficult that's a lot of bridging going on. Here they stretched it out here they stretched looking for the frame with the least amount of bridging this is the heart that has everybody out on the front
It looks like she's trying to swarm and we can split this and leave the queen cell that's here and move her to a new box or we could just offer. Well she is that old there she goes okay but she's not lying that well
I moved the frame that have the three Queen sell started on it into the blue Hive. She's probably going to start some other Queen cells keep an eye out for them and you may ha

Small Hive with yellow Queen 
When I open the lime tray today there were lots of larvae crawling around in the lime. I shook the lime. I will ask the inspector what's going on. Some more Cpcapped brood but not a lot, not a solid pattern and we've got a queen cell two queen cells with bees in them see anything in there

Double decker Nuc box
Blue Hive on East with Pippin Queen
Time is money and that's smart. In invert the lid and set the excluder SEPTA super on it. Oh yeah.
one of these more common things that I see one of my more common helpful hands sorry girls everybody tells you don't paint the inside of the box if you don't paint the upper edges of the box you can get wood rot there you don't need to paint the inside but the upper edges and lower cuz of the damp because they're up against Foundation because they're up against Foundation they draw this honey because they're up against Foundation they draw this honey I see when going up against New Foundation that's not drawn and not painted they may draw the other side too seep. The bigger communication holes allow them to go around while staying on the wax instead of going onto the wooden frames Mister pip in this is Miss Anna's and I I've been asked not to have you in our up our inspection we're in the middle of a 10 frame box how you doing easy cut out
Look in the queen cup to see if you see anything but that's okay to leave those cups in there.
No Queen, no eggs. Think about it. But take the Super in the Queen excluder off. What were you thinking

double decker South nuc
Cut larger Corners off of the passageway so that they'll build drone come there and that will give you the Drone cone that you need it should be about 10 to 12 in per hive square inches. I love talkin
On the way of the inspection he's looking for two frames of sealed brood. See queen photo.

More than they'll be okay if you want it

South Hive from Tracy's  old box.
Consider putting in a 1 inch feeder hole at the top with an inverted jar with the whole centered instead of having such a big hole for your mason jar. Nice idea when you got an excluder go above it and pry a way up in a way, if you're going below it pry down and away. Tear over here check your bottom frames to make sure a queen or a little Queen didn't get up there and is laying in your honey super. When you smoke one area smoke the super that you set to the side as well or they'll come back from the backside to get you. Aluminum tape for ductwork is a good way to repair a break in a queen excluder go over and under the area and block off any distorted area. Otherwise, Queen might sneak through. At 1 smoker see outside frame look at the Burke home on the 4th frame and we're. , see the photo of the queen and then on the next frame you'll see a combination of the worker and the Drone together this was on one of those short frames with Burke home along the bottom. When you see the bees lining up along the edge of the frame they're getting ready to come up so give him a touch of smoke to keep them down. Bees prefer to be shaking and brushed for those short frames move them up into a full deep but with a excluder below them after you shaking them off after a couple of weeks clean off the Burke home once they've hatched out.

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Hive check April 22, 2018

This hive visit I was accompanied by M., a dear-beekeeping, coffee-drinking, secret-confidant friend. All of this report is a result of your help. We saw a beautiful queen in the “abandonded” hive I’ve been working to save, as well as the yellow queen in the hive that she has given me. All in all it was a lovely day. Followed up with organic grape wine spritzer, crackers and cheese. Cheese and crackers got all muddy.

On the East hive (blue brood box), we added a honey super with a queen excluder but we didn't see an impressive wall-to-wall brood pattern. The bees are calm, and we saw all stages of brood. They're bringing in pollen and nectar so this is a good hive.

On the Eastside Nuc: It's building out nicely and doing well. I  might add a second nuc box on top of it next week or so depending upon how things look.

The Yellow Queen (nuc) Hive, was the rehive I nuc’3e with the Yellow Queen. It seems to want to requeen. There were a couple of queen cups but still has an OK brood pattern, just a little spotty. And, it has a lot of drone brood which indicates that she might be failing.

North hive, this was the original box the yellow queen was in but was allowed to requeen. It's building out quite nicely. It may be ready for a queen excluder and super within a week or two.

T.'s hive nuc, I also call the Southside Nuc, had a lovely brood pattern. We moved frames around to checkerboard them and to encourage the build out of foundation. I’ll possibly add a second nuc box on top or rehive to a 10-frame, if they're that strong. This box could use a frame of drawn comb so that the queen has room to lay. Note to self: Look in the freezer.

The Southside Hive had the honey super put on last week. They are already beginning to put nectar up there. None of the frames have been drawn out yet. The brood box still has two or three blanks that have a little bit of foundation drawn out so we moved them around to encourage build out.

Hive checks, February 17 2018

Hive check, north
The box is nicely built out, there were no queen cells but there were drone cells. Did not check for purple-eyed yet since I had not seen any queen cells. I'm ready to split as soon as I see an indication so I will check again next week. The deep on the top had some new wax built out nothing impressive.
They are finally building out the midbar frame very nicely.
Calm nature, lots of stores. I did I mite count on this hive with an alcohol shake, but saw only one mite. However, when I pulled the limetray out there was some sort of creature like a larvae crawling around. Not happy. Could have been an egg of a moth lodged in the corner crevice of the brood box i added. Humnn.

2/23/18 Update. There were three different size larvae in the lime trade this week, but when I visited on Saturday I saw no further signs of them. And no other signs of any pests. I looked at the frames on the upper box. They had white wax and these were beginning to build them out. I stop feeding the mid-week on advice to do so if I wanted to prevent a swarm.

Hive check, west--Michelle's
Went in today to transfer equipment from her 8-frame equipment to my 10-frame. The hive was really full so I put a second deep on top using some of the deep frames from the south hive that had the beginning of build out on them. I'll be feeding all three hives. Michelle is going to be out to treat this hive again on Wednesday. The other hives were treated in late November.  I did not do a mite check on it. I looked for queen cells and saw none.

Update 2/23/18 Michelle felt the population was still low, although it's intrance was more active than the North Hive. I took the upper box off to allow them to build out the three empty frames in the lower box. We'll see how they do in the next week. She is finishing up the Api-var life treatment.

Hive check, south
South hive. The hive formerly known as Tracie's. So, I've been slowly rotating off her shallow foundation brood boxes, to use deeps. Today I transferred as much as I could. The bottom of the hive now has a deep brood box but with very little built out foundation.
I put the shallow box with all of the foundation on top, switching the positions. They are beginning to build out white wax. My theory is that soon, the queen will be in the upper, shallow box with lots of room to lay. The workers will build out the deep brood box. In two weeks which will be March 1st, before or after I go to Atlanta, I will rotate the top to the bottom, and the bottom on the top. There should be enough bees by that time to build out the deep, which will be on the top, rapidly.
Once the last of the brood in the shallow box hatch out, I can totally remove the last of the shallow boxes. If the flow is coming on, I can put it can on top.
The hive has plenty of stores, and I saw both capped brood and open larva, but not necessarily in a great pattern.
I did not find any queen cells. Nor did I see any drone brood, yet this is the slow developing hive. I did do a mite check and only caught one mite. But there were a few odd looking bees, so I'll need to be vigilant.

Update 2/23/18

I was hoping that the queen would move up into the upper shallow box where all the frames have pulled out comb. I checked them all. I did not see her, however this being the seventh day I think I saw some curled larvae in the bottom of some of the cells. I will check again next week and then try to leave them bees alone!

New hive, expanding populations

Today, Michelle brought me out a single brood box of eight frames as a gift. I'm going to leave the traveling screen on until I get the sugar water into them.
It's next to the strong North hive. I went into the North Hive this morning. It is ery active, lots of bees but the queen has not moved up into the upper box. There's no new comb being built out for her and I don't have drawn comb to put up there.
I did a quick check for swarm cells, but I believe it's too early. The few drone cells that I checked did not have purple eyes.
In the South Hive, there was less activity. And only a few bees walking around in the upper brood box.
I think it's still too early, I will need to look at the timing of the purple eyed drones and see if we can't get swarm management under control this year.
I need to order the small hive beetle poison for the beetle traps and to do a mite count in the next weekend.
Both of the hive seemed rather calm. The population in the South Side was clearly smaller.
Both are bringing in pollen and both have good supplies.

Scarfing down the food

A quick check of both of the hives today showed a lot of flights during the 70 degree afternoon sunshine. A check in the hive show that all of the pollen patties have been eaten and a quart of thin syrup had been chugged  down by each hive in a week. These were in the upper brood box  checking out the new  frames. Things are looking good. Enlarge the photos to see the pollen that they're bringing in.