June 13th Inspection

I went to my parent's today to check on the bees and take my mother to a birthday tea. I went over to see what the bees were up to and was impressed at the activity in front of each hive. I then felt a sharp pain on the top of my head and thought that I might of been stung by a rouge bee. Afterwords though I decided that it was probably not a bee as there was no stinger, and instead it was probably a deer fly since they were out in force all day long.

I used a weed wacker to improve on the path to get across to the hives, though I didn't actually wack the grass near the hives themselves. Next time I will do a more thorough job, perhaps with a scythe.

In the afternoon I opened up the hives with my sister getting her first look at the gals. In both hives, there were some bees in the top box, however, in Juno a comb was being built in between frames (since there was extra space since I did not put in the drone frame last time). Artemis had a few smaller combs being built up in the in between frame space. I felt I had to remove the combs otherwise they would bind up the frames forever. Unfortunately, this killed a dozen or so larvae. But better now then when the entire comb has larvae. Added the drone frames (off to one side) to take up space to each hive until I can assemble the two deep frames that they need. Or, if I do a mite check later and find some I might leave them in there. Speaking of which, next time I work with the bees I should do a sugar dusting. The top of the bottom boxes had many bees. Cleaned off comb from the top of the frames. I peeked at the frames in the far side away from the nuc frames and they did not seem to be touched yet. I may have to continue sliding frames over. I seem to remember Russ mentioning something about that.

The pupae were a good sign that the queen is laying well.

I need to arrange the space around the hives better. There are a lot of flat rocks that I step on to get around back of the hives that wobble precariously. Also, a table of some sort, be it cinder blocks or stacked rocks, would be very useful for placing items on while working. I am constantly putting something down only to have to scramble to find it again, all the while the smoker is burning through its fuel.

I am starting to think that if things go well this year *crosses fingers* and I think that I will have the time, I may expand the apiary. Possibly by adding a third hive at my parents. But also perhaps finding alternative locations. My friend MB has expressed the desire for me to keep bees at his place in Fairfax. Also, I might try to work something out with farmers that are near either my parent's or MB. If I could have a loop to hit each hive in turn it might be too difficult. I am also strongly considering giving top bar hives a whirl. Especially if I can find a way to sell comb honey.


This is Juno hive:



This is Artemis hive:



This is the rouge comb in Juno hive.