2011-09-10: Spinning Gold

My parents' had tried to keep the bees out of the supers, but either some got in or some stayed in and I tried to air out the supers some before loading them into my car and drove over to my mentor's. There I sliced off the caps and loaded them into the honey extractor. After a few minutes honey started to dribble out. It was my first taste of fresh honey! Both my mentor and I wondered a bit about the sour note to the honey.

I brought the bucket of honey to my parents' place and my mother and I filled up pint jelly jars with it. We got about 25 lbs all told.

 

 

 

I placed the post-extraction frames out for the bees to rob out the remaining traces of honey. I also experimented with a bucket feeder with a floating platform. The bucket was a failure with a large number of drowned bees. But the resulting frenzy of activity around the frames was hair raising!

Also, I put in the second round of Apistan to the Ceres and the double nucs as well as finally breaking up Juno by opening up the box and pulling out the frames and brushing off the few bees that were left.

2011-09-04: The Great Honey Heist

It was a warm and humid day when I arrived at my parents' to finally remove the honey suppers from Artemis. I noticed that the double nucs had many bees hanging out on the outside in what I believe is an example of bearding. Having workers hang out outside helps to keep the interior cooler on hot days, especially since the double nucs don't have screen bottom boards.

 

 

I worked fast since I could hear a thunder storm coming in. The top medium super looked more or less untouched, I was overly optimistic when I added it. The other two were not as full as I have hoped. It looks like that at some point the bees had removed honey up the middle, either because of need for food or space, and the queen had laid some brood in there. They were mostly already hatched, but a few capped brood remained (including some hatching as I watched). But I pulled them all off and put them in my wheel barrow and carted them off to the porch.

 

And then it rained. A lot!

 

2011-09-02: Meds

The plan for the day was to remove the honey supers from Artemis and then add the apistan anti-mite medication to that have (since you don't want to have medication (in this case thyme oil fumes) permeating the honey that you want to eat). Also in the works was to put the wedges/spacers that I built myself on top of the double nucs to provide enough space on top to allow me to place the medication on top of them as well (since I have been seeing mites on them even though). In this photo you can see that they got through the tropical storm fine and you can see the bare wood of the one way bee escape halfway up Artemis.

 

Things did not go as planned. Last time I had placed an one way exit under the honey supers so that the bees could vacate the supers as they retreat from them at night but can't get back. I had taken the top board and reversed it so that they could not enter the supers via the top entrance groove. I had overlooked the fact that the bees still could work there way under the outer cover and get int through the hole i the top of the inner cover, and indeed many bees did just that and the supers had plenty of bees in them. I covered the inner cover hole with a piece of wood and resigned myself to removing them in a future visit. This also delayed any plans of adding medication to Artemis. This is a picture of that inner cover showing the cut groove that acted as a top entrance and the hole in the middle.

 

The double nucs went smoother. I removed the pollen pattie remnants from last time as well as adding more sugar water to the inner feeders I had placed in then (they were empty). I probably should have been using the feeders from the first day of building the double nucs so that they could draw out the comb and fill them with honey. Well, there is always next year. I placed the spacer in and added one half of a apistan container to each.

 

 

2011-08-27: A Coming Storm

I started treating Ceres with Apistan by placing one patty on top of the frames with a reversed slat bottom board providing the necessary space since I didn't have a wedge on hand.

 

Artemis could not be treated at this point as I had honey supers on her still... but while I was inspecting her I broke some burr comb with larvae and noticed more mites than I would have liked to see. I did place the one way bee escape under the supers so bees can only leave the supers and flipped the inner cover so that the top entrance slot will no longer be open. When I come back in a few days the bees should be gone from the supers.

 

 

The double nucs are growing stronger but I would like to see more of their top frames filled with honey.

 

I wrapped up the day by wrapping up the hives in preparation for a Huricane Irene who was expected to roll through the area.

 

2011-08-07: Queens to the Rescue!

Retrieved frame with 2 queen cells generously donated by my mentor. I transported them in a styrofoam nuc from BetterBee, waste not want not. I wore the suit while driving back since I worry about alone bee getting in my eye while driving... I can only imagine what I looked like to other drivers.

Here is a picture of the nuc box I used t transport the frame with the queen cells... remember, buckle up for safety.

 

I installed the frame into Juno with some nurse bees that came along for the ride and some bees on a deep frame from Blue, I heard somewhere that bees combine easier if you have bees from three or more hives. And then I dusted the bees with confectionary sugar and some smoke to try to dampen their agression to each other.

Added mesh strips to the top hole of Artemis and Blue hive as well as the entrance to the double nucs. The later seemed to be especially needed as there often seemed to be alot of bees floating about the entrances and making repeated attempts to land. Hopefully the mesh will give them more area to make a landing.

2011-08-06: Quick Check after VBA

30 second counts 1 Juno, 64 Artemis, 38 Blue, 22 purple, 17 Mauve

After the VBA meeting I paid a visit on the girls. It was a little late in the day.

Juno not doing much, not even any bur or bracing comb in the empty parts of box.

 

 

The first two supers on Artemis partially capped. A few bees were using the hole I had drilled into the top super to enter and exit the hive. Only a few bees were fanning at the entrance. Did not observe any foragers returning with pollen.

 

 

Ceres foragers were not using the hole drilled into the top super. At some point should cut top entrances into the inner cover since currently only Artemis has that feature (and the bees there use it a great deal both in summer and in winter). Like Artemis, only a few bees were fanning at the entrance and I did not observe any foragers returning with pollen.

 

The 'purple' nuc had several workers fanning at the entrance while 'mauve' did not...

 

There is a funky smell about the hives, I suspect that is the smell that results from the bees working goldenrod.