June 24, 2011

Checked the top feeder on both hives today and it did not appear that the bees were using them. Gee, maybe maybe there still is enough out there for them to feed on! I'll check back in a few days to see if they're using the feeders. If not, I'll probably remove them.

June 23, 2011

Checked the new hive today to see if the queen had been released and she was. I removed the queen cage and put a top feeder on the new hive. I'll give her a week or two and then check back to see if she's laying eggs.

June 21, 2011

Mixed up some sugar syrup this morning to start feeding the bees on Mike's suggestion. In the afternoon, I suited up and went down to the hive to install the top feeders. I started with the first hive by giving them a good smoking. (I learn quick!) I let a couple of minutes go by and then removed the top and inner cover. I pulled out the middle frame of the upper deep and saw that it had a nice drawn comb on it. They seem to be doing good even after transplanting one of the frames several days ago. I put the top feeder on the hive and filled it with 1 gal of syrup. I then closed the hive by putting the top cover on the feeder.

I pulled the top and inner cover on the 2nd hive and discovered that the new queen was still in her cage. I didn't want to disturb things so I put the top and inner cover back on and decided to hold off on using the feeder for a couple of days.

No stings today!

June 16-17-18, 2011

June 18, 2011

Mike came over today to check out the new hive. After pulling and examined several frames, he said that there were a lot of Drone cells on the frames and it didn't appear that the Queen was performing. Mike said we should replace the Queen in the new hive, so he first located and removed the old Queen. Since the new hive did not have any brood developed and the bees were starting to get a little 'old', Mike said we should transplant one of the brood frames from my first hive. This will allow new bees to hatch while waiting for the new Queen to start laying eggs. We pulled the middle frame from the first hive (after making sure the Queen was not on it) and placed it in the middle of the new hive. We then closed up both of the hives. Mike said to wait several hours to let the bees in the new hive realize that they no longer had a Queen. At that point I should put the new Queen cage into the new hive. In several days she should be released from her cage and start laying eggs.  Mike also suggested that due to the lack of flowering plants, I should start feeding both hives. I'll set up the feeders in a day or two.

June 17, 2011

OK, let try this again!

I really wanted to check a little closer to see what was going on in the new hive, but since my bad experience yesterday I decided to 'suit up'! I purchased a one piece painting suit at Lowes for $8. No nooks and crannies in this for the bees to fly into! Also, I modified my bee veil to make sure the straps pulled down both the front and back. The straps fit under the arms to keep everything nice and tight. I also broke out the bee gloves. Yes they're clumsy, but I ain't getting stung again today! So, fully protected, I fired up my smokers and off to the hive I went. I decided to video all this, but my battery's went dead about 1 minute after I turned on the camera! Oh well!! Anyway, the hive inspection went well this time. NO STINGS and the bees were a lot calmer since I used smoke. (Lesson learned!) I did however not like what I saw in the hive. No eggs, larvae or brood. I did find what looked like supersedure cells and a lot of the cells that were unusually 'built out' vs just being capped. I closed up the hive and decided to give Mike a call.

June 16, 2011

BAD BEE DAY!!! OK, let's just start out by saying I got stung today!

I wanted to see how things were going in the new hive, so I decided to take a look. Being complacent due to my previous successful inspections, I made two fatal mistakes. I didn't use the smoker and I didn't have the bottom of my veil sealed tight.

I opened the hive and started inspecting the frames. I wasn't seeing any eggs or brood, but I thought a did see superedure cells. Also, a lot of the cells had been 'built out' rather then just being capped. I'm thinking the Queen might not be in the hive or is not performing. That's when several bees found their way into the underside of my veil. Since this happend before, I just walked away from the hive, took off my veil and shook out the bees. After doing this I headed back to the hive to continue my inspection. Well, more bees found their way into my veil and this time they really seemed 'angry'! I decided it was time to stop the hive inspection, so I put everything back together. I started to feel the bees crawling around my head and decided to go into panic mode and took off! After running away from the hive I ripped off the veil and started smacking the bees on my head. I got several of them, but several of them got me! And to make matters worse, additional ones were after me. I ran up to the house and went into the mud room, but about half a dozen of those buggers followed me. I did finally manage to kill the bees that followed me into the mud room. Well, after all this, it was now time to sit back and figure out what went wrong......

June 7, 2011

On Monday Sue and I went up to Peck's Bee Supply to purchase wax foundations and some other supplies. Need to get another deep ready for the first hive!

On Tuesday I had to string wire on 10 deep frames and cleanup 10 others that were already wired. I had to drill out the sides for the grommets, but found that it was pretty easy to wire the foundations although it did take a little time. I wore my biking gloves to stretch the wire nice and taunt. Without the gloves the wire really dug into the skin! Forgot to take pictures of this process!

Next, I had to put wax foundations in the 20 frames. This also was pretty easy. By the time I got to the 20 frame, I was pretty slick at doing it! I did a little research online and found that you could use an electric transformer to heat the cross wires into the wax rather then using a tool to embed them. I  first tried using a transformer that we had to run an electric toy train. Not enough juice to heat the wire! I next tried using a 12 volt car battery charger. It has 2 settings, 1.5 and 10 amp. The 10 amp setting worked best and would heat the wire in 5-10 seconds. After that amount of time, I removed the contacts and gently pressed the wax foundation into the heated wires. This process works great. Guess I should have taken a video of it!

After a had the frames ready to go, I went down to check my hives. On the original hive, the bees had drawn comb on most of the frames. The one outer frame was still untouched, so I swapped it with the one right aside of it. Since the book says you can have 2,000 new bees emerging every day, I thought it was time to put on a second deep hive body. I kept the entrance reducer on the small opening, but will probably move it to the larger opening sometime this week or next. I closed up the hive by putting the inner and outer cover on top of the new body.

While I was checking hives, I thought I'd see how the bees were doing in the new hive. They have nice comb drawn on about 4 or 5 frames, but I really didn't see and eggs or capped broad. Since I went thru this with the first hive, I thought I'd wait a week or two and check back before being worried that the queen isn't laying eggs. 

I did take pictures when I checked the two hives, but they all turned out blurry! I accidentally had the camera on max zoom. It's a little hard handling the frames and taking pics at the same time. I did get a nice shot of my foot, but didn't think anyone would be interested in that.....

June 1, 2011

Checked the new hive today to see if the Queen was out of her cage and she was. I removed her empty cage, the canned syrup and the temporary box I had them in. I sat the can feeder outside the hive in case the bees still wanted to feed on it. I then closed the hive by putting the inner and outer covers back on top of the hive. I'll check back in a week or two to see if she'll laying eggs.