2013-05-12: Fixing an Oops

I realized that when I had reversed some of the hives the last time, I had not properly separated the slat bottom board ( a device that gives the bees some space under their frames above the bottom board, supposedly allows them to keep the bottoms of the frames warmer during cool months and feel less crowded) from the bottom of the bottom box.  So it had tagged along for the reversing and ended up in between the two boxes in Sage and Blue.  This visit to the bee yard I fixed that.  The bees had built a little burr come in the slat bottom boards, especially Sage.  Hopefully this had not caused them too much trouble with this huge gap in the middle of their brood space.

Here is how they looked after I was done, I find that having the gap between each pair is useful when I need to place a box to one side while working on the hives:

 

I also visited the annex and I was busy shifting the second hive there around to face South and to lay down pieces of cement board under the fence line.  This later material is something that I had gotten off of Craigslist for free several years ago imagining that it would be useful one day.  And it was!  By placing them under the fence line I would help keep grass from growing up and touching the line and shorting it out. 

2013-05-04: Reversing

The plan was to check on how the hives were doing and to reverse the boxes to counteract the fact that bees had likely worked their way to the top of the hives during the winter and might feel crowded up there even though they have plenty of room below.

Purple: So me of the foragers bringing in yellow pollen.  Most of the sugar mush is gone but the pollen patty was hardly touched.  I had placed a medium frame in it at one point in the past and I removed it and put in a frame with bare foundation instead.  There was a brood frame in the bottom box, moved it to the top.  It had brood in it so I will need removal in a 1-2 weeks.  Frames had pollen and nectar (thus they are bringing in nectar).  The hive had a solid bottom board, I will eventually want to replace that with a screened bottom board.

 

Sage:  The top b ox was heavy, outer frame  was solid honey.  Appears to be a lot of done comb built between the boxes which I fed to the chickens.  Had a screened bottom board.  I placed a shallow super on it in which I had modified by adding screened ventilation holes in the sides and open holes (with folded screen landing pads in front of them) for top entrances.  I have read of some theories that increased ventilation will free up more workers from fanning to keep the hive cool and to dry the honey, thus increasing production.  Perhaps, perhaps not, but I do like the idea of upper entrances so the forgers are getting right to the supers instead of crawling up from the bottom entrance all the way to the top supers.  I placed a queen excluder underneath it so as to keep the queen from laying in the supers.  I places it offset to the back by an inch to allow somewhat easier passage by the workers, this left a gap in the front which proved to be big enough for bees to use as an entrance.  I hadn’t meant to do that but it was done and they had already swarmed up into that gap by the time I noticed.

   

DarkGreen:  Empty frames (around 4) in the bottom.  Switched boxes.  It had a screen bottom board (specifically one with a space to allow monitoring trays to be slid in from the back.  I removed the insulation box and the frame of honey that was in it.

Blue: Bottom box was empty of bees, switched boxes.  Replace green plastic drone frame with a regular frame.  Saw a mite.  Some of the comb had dark stains suggestive of nosema infection during the winter.  That might explain why this hive came out weaker than the others.

I did not have time to do Red and Yellow.

Annex yard:  I transferred the nucs to proper hives (Marigold and one cobbled out of spare boxes).  I of course did not do my math right and I had to run home to get enough boxes and frames to finish the set up.  As it was, I was short a frame for each hive in the top box and the cobbled hive is missing a proper inner cover.  I also need to have a better stand for them.