2011-05-04: Things are Picking Up

On May Day I was at my parent's for my niece's birthday (she even has red hair, maybe I should get her a copy of Das Kapital for her 16th Birthday). While there I took the opportunity to get some work done with the bees. My father had picked up 6"x12" cement pavers for me so that I could lay them down to make a nice level base for the hives. This was dreamed up after my hive started to tip precariously last month as one leg sunk into the mud. In addition to stability, they should keep the grass from growing directly below and in front of the hives. The pieces of scrap roofing metal did a good job of that last year but were not very esthetic and my mother would like to have a nice bee yard to look at while having her morning coffee in the summer.

I donned the bee suit since I didn't know how they would take excavation being done so close to the hive and I wanted to cover my dark clothing. It was in the 60's but it did not take long to work up a sweat in that suit while I was hoeing the turf away so that the bricks would be flat. But even though it was hot in their, the suit did give me peace of mind while I was bent over with the hoe and presenting what must have been a tempting target to the hive not two feet away.

In the photo I took of the hive that day, you can see the pavers in the corner. I plan on moving the hive the next time I am up there if the pavers appear to be snug in the ground after all the rain we have been having. Also, you can see the bees are very active out of the top entrance. I counted 106 bees/min. I thought it was interesting that they were not using the lower entrance at all. About every third forager had pollen, some a pale yellow, others a strong orange color.

 

Yesterday I drove my mother home after babysitting BabyD. This gave me a chance to pick up the nuc that PY had picked up for me. The plan was that I would swing by at 7PM when he could close the entrance after most of the foragers had returned for the night so they would not be left behind. We need not had worried since it was a rainy day and the foragers were not going anywhere. PY suggested that I either put saranwrap over them or get them under cover since the nuc was really just a wooden box and the rain could enter the top and drip onto the bees. Fortunately, my parent's house has a porch on the back that still has a cover over half of it. I left the nuc under that shelter with a feeder full of syrup and vitamins nearby. Hopefully the rain will keep my hive from investigating the feeder for a while as I don't want the strong hive to then get stimulated into robbing the nuc. We shall see. Certainly it rained most of today and is expected to shower tomorrow. I plan on getting up to the farm on Friday in order to move the nuc into a real brood box, put a few suppers on the main hive to encourage them to start drawing out comb, and to possibly move the main hive onto the pavers.

In a few weeks I pick up the second nuc, bringing me to three hives. But I hope to install one down at a nearby farm, assuming I can get out there and find a good spot. The farmers would like to see more than one hive down there and I am tempted to oblige them with a double nuc I hope to start in July.