Busy as a .. well.. you know

I took today off from work to have time to clean up the bee yard and work with them. Specifically the grass needed to be cut, the temporary top brood boxes replaced with the permanent ones, sugar treatment, and a general inspection.

What I observed when I arrived was that Artemis (the green hive) had a great deal of activity around the entrance compared to Juno. The forager count for Artemis was 28/30seconds or about 56/minute, which was actually not that much. Juno had about 41/30 seconds for 82 foragers returning every minute. It was perhaps one of these Junoese foragers who decided she didn't like the look of me and first headbutted my veil before setting in for a sting on my bare arm (I was not wearing the full suit for the counting). So, my first sting as happened and I am still among the living. Thus we can conclude that I am not allergic to bee stings.

Here is a video of the entrance of Artemis at the time (please note its tilted because of the way I held the camera).




After talking with my mother for a few minutes to pass the time while I waited to see if I would drop dead or not, I removed some of the lower limbs from the birch tree near the entrance to the bee yard in order to make it look more open and to be easier to enter. I then proceeded to use the electric weed wacker around the hives. This was somewhat nerve wracking and Artemis was looking feisty. After the electric trimmer ran out of juice, I had my father help me fire up the big weed wacker and I took care of most of the remaining grass. The bees seemed to tolerate it rather well, Artemis didn't change and Juno just had a moderate amount of buzzing around the entrance where several tufts of grass fell. I think I will still use the electric around the hives in the future just in case.

I let the hives chill for an hour before trying to open them. Inside Artemis I found some frames in the top box had been built out, while most looked untouched. I a cell jutting out from the surface.
At the time I assumed it was a drone cell. Only later did I start to worry that it might be a queen cell which could mean that my colony might swarm soon. If I could capture it or split the hive before the swarm that would not be too much of a problem, I was hoping to make splits next year anyways. However, if they fly off never to be seen again I will be left with a weakened colony to try to nurse back to health before winter.

Artemis's bottom brood box was thick with bees except for a few frames to the far side. I should probably try to integrate the undrawn frames into the box so they will get drawn out (and also make the bees feel less crowded and likely to swarm).



After removing some more burr comb (comb that the bees build between frames) I transferred the frames from the old top box to the new stylish box. The old box was one that my father had patched a month ago and I had wanted to replace it to one that was painted to match the bottom and was fully sound. I then dusted the top of the frames with confectionery sugar which is a way to combat mites, the sugar causes the bees to groom themselves as well as interfere with the mites' feet ability to adhere to the bees... both resulting in the mites falling off the bees and hopefully to their deaths under the hive.

Juno proceeded in a similar fashion as Artemis. No potential swarm cells were spotted, some burr comb removed, and the frames from the old top box (one my father had put together as a temporary box while we were waiting for the backordered boxes to arrive) to the new one. I had finished applying the confectionery sugar to the top of the bottom box and had turned to put the top box back on when I realized that I had the top box upside down, so the frames were not nested in the groove for that purpose. So I had to quickly take all 10 frames out and place them back in the old box, flip the new box, and then put all the frames back into it. Meanwhile the bees in the bottom box were rather annoyed with their sugar dust bath and were flying around in an agitated (and sugar dust covered) manner.

In the end, the hives were put to rights and I made my retreat. I have sent an email to my mentor to ask if he can check out the cell with me in the near future.

Here are pictures of the two hives with their snazzy new top boxes.