May 29, 2011 Newbeez

Well, we had a busy (as a bee!) day today. Sue and I went up to Bjorn Apiaries to pickup 2 packages of Russian hybrid bees. One for us and one for our neighbor. We now have 3 neighbors keeping bees! Forgot Tupelo Honey.....think Lewisberry Honey!!

After lunch today, Chris, Evan and Vulcan came down to help install the bees into the hive.

But, before installing the new bees, we thought we'd checkout the existing hive. Things were looking real good. Lots of comb buildout and lots of brood cells (the tan capped cells). We also spotted a lot of larvea that hadn't been capped yet. The white capped cells are honey. I was really surprised, some of the frames are starting to get heavy!

We started out the new install by having Evan carry the bees to the hive:

It was now time to get down to the real work. Installing the bees:

Since I had the help of Master Bee Keeper Evan, things went really smooth. But as you can see in the above video, bees were flying everywhere when we finished the install! Unfortunately, this is when we had a first bee casualty. Poor Vulcan, he was just standing there minding his own business............... :-(

May 23, 2011

It was a nice warm day today and I was down at the barn, so I thought I'd see how the bees are doing. Lots of bees flying in and out of the hive. Many of the incoming bees had pollen packed on their legs. I lifted the top cover to see if many bees were still using the feeder and discovered only a couple were actually feeding. I also noticed a few ants crawling around the hive. Since the bee weren't really using the feeder anymore and I'm sure it's what's attracting the ants, I decided to remove the top feed. I removed it and dumped the remaining syrup out in the field. In place of the top feeder I installed the inner cover with the end notch facing up and toward the front of the hive. On top of that I installed the top cover pushing it forward to make sure the notch would provide ventalation to the hive. If I still have ant problems, I might place each of the 4 legs of the hive stand in the cut off bottoms of milk cartons. I'll then fill these with water. This will act as a moat to keep the ants out. I have been told however that the bees will take care of the ants on their own. We'll see!

May 22, 2011

Mike from Bjorn Apiaries called and then stopped by to check my hive. We opened the hive and did the frame inspections just like yesterday only this time we found what we were looking for. Mike was able to find and point out to me the Queen. He also showed me cells that had eggs in them. Boy are those eggs small! And the final thing he showed me was capped brood. I swear they weren't there yesterday!! Sue will back me up on that....

May 21, 2011

Time for my 1st real inspection of the hive to see what's going on. I opened the hive like normal and inspected each frame one by one starting with the one closest to the side. Most of the outer frame didn't have much happening, but I had 3 inners frames that had about 3/4 build out of comb. Man, these bees work fast! Some of the top celled had a white capping. I beleive there's honey in those cells. Also had numerous cells filled with pollen. Several different colors: Gray, orange, yellow, etc. Lots of other cells had a 'water' like fill. Not sure exactly what that is... I checked for supersedure cells, but didn't see any. That good because it means the bees aren't looking to create a new Queen or looking to swarm. What I didn't see was the Queen herself nor did I see any eggs or lavrae. I also didn't see any capped brood, so now I'm starting to wonder if the Queen is alive in the hive and is actively laying eggs. Not in panic mode yet, but I think I'll send an email to Mike at Bjorn Apiaries and get his opinion as to whether he thinks things are OK.

May 15, 2011

Checked the top feeder on the hive and discovered it was empty. I added another gallon of sugar syrup. Same mixture as before only used a little Honey B Healthy. This provides the bees with essential oils and it supposed to be a 'more natural' solution to bee health issues.

May 12, 2011

Well the bees have been in the hive for several days now so it's time to check and see if the Queen has been released from her cage. I opened the hive by first removing the top cover followed by removing the top feeder. I pulled the Queen's cage from the middle of the frames and discovered she was indeed released. This is great news! Hopefully she'll be laying eggs in several days and our colony will start expanding. After removing the Queen cage, I installed the 10th frame and also removed a little burr comb that had been built up where the cage was placed. Put the feeder and cover back on the hive and called it a successful day.

May 8, 2011 & May 10, 2011

May 10,

Had our first bee visitors today. Mom, Laurie, Landri along with our neighbor Diann and her granddaugher Sarah stopped over to checkout the bees.

May 8,

Today we installed our bee package that we purchased from Bjorn Apiaries. These bees are Russian Hybrids that originated from Hardeman's Apiaries in Georgia. I used a top feeder on the hive filled with a sugar syrup made with 5lb of sugar and 2 1/2 quarts of water. I also installed an entrance reducer set to it's smallest opening. This will give the bees a smaller area to defend until the colony expands. Filming was done by my brave wife, Sue. No one was stung in this process!

Here's a video of the install:

May 7, 2011

Hi! My names Dave and this blog is an attempt to document my new hobby of Bee Keeping. I plan to make postings each time I interact with the bees. Hopefully you will be able to learn from my mistakes. And if I happen to do something right, then we both learned something! Thanks for reading.