2011-05-06: Every Nuc Needs a Patio

A few weeks ago in early May I recieved delivery of the first of the two nucs I had ordered this year. It sat for a few days on my parent's back porch under cover while I waited for the weather to improve. On the 6th of May the sun came out and I was able to get to work.

I had decided to put a few supers onto my overwintered hive, Artemis. I opened the top cover and saw a large number of bees working the fondant and patty. I moved the feeding super with the inner cover to one side. I then placed on two shallow supers of undrawn wax foundation on top of the hive and then placed the inner cover and feeding super back on.

 

Moving my attention to the nuc, I brought it over to the beeyard. I had already set up the deep that it was going to go into. I had the drawn and partially drawn frames from Juno hive last year still and I used some of them to supply the extra frames to make up the full complement of 10 with the addition of the frames in the nuc. With my handy pocket leatherman I unscrewed the top of the nuc and transfered the frames to their new home. I left the box at the front of the hive in hopes that the bees clinging to it will eventually get the idea to go into their new home. I put entrance reducer in place (to deter robbing from Artemis) and put the top on.

 

 

Stepping back I admired the look of the two hives on their nice paver patio. They looked pretty good, though part of me wont be happy until Artemis has all green boxes again.

 

At some point I need to name the new hive. I could go with Juno again... but I think I want to get closer to an alphabetical progression... There are precious few goddesses that begin with 'B' so I may skip to Ceres.