East Hive Inspection

Yesterday I was over at my dad's for some dinner and to inspect the East hive, started from a swarm in June. As an added bonus, we had a special guest! A friend of mine from work's wife is thinking about keeping bees, so I had her come over and get her hands in a hive. I think she enjoyed herself enough to maybe give it a try next spring.

The bees are only occupying about six of ten frames. I sure would like to see them build up more than this, but we've been under a drought for almost two months now, so that might have something to do with it.

Our friend Amy was very curious, and was able to spot the eggs right away. The queen is definitely healthy and laying, but she might not have a lot of room to lay with not a lot of wax drawn on the extra frames. Hopefully with the rain we've been getting now, some stuff will start blooming and they can make more wax. My dad doesn't want to feed them anymore because he's already dumped about $50 of sugar water in there. I can't say I blame him.

South apiary inspection

96 degrees and sunny

Things are good these days in the South apiary despite the dearth. The package hive started in April still has 16 frames drawn in two boxes. The third box has about two frames drawn. Not much progress there.

The swarm hive is looking good, with two boxes fully drawn. I have to build a box and frames to add to it.

The Ohio Queen Project nuc has eggs laid in a very nice pattern. I guess the queen took her time mating. Maybe the heat.

The Dearth is here

Inspected South hives today. The package hive looks exactly like it did a week ago - second box has sever frames drawn and full of brood. Very little honey. They have not touched the third Medium I gave them last week. I know last week when I inspected I saw a couple frames of honey, but it looks now like they have consumed it. I think that means the summer dearth is here so I mixed up some sugar water for them and put it on last night.

The swarm hive from Essie's has drawn out six of the ten frames and will probably have to get another box next week, especially if I start feeding it. I saw eggs and brood in the top box of that hive, so the queen that they raised seems to be working effectively.

I did a split on June 21st from Essie's hive and added an open queen cell from the Ohio Queen Program. It is supposed to emerge sometime next week. I opened up that 6-frame medium nuc box to see if the bees had started drawing out the comb on the two empty frames. They hadn't. I would put a jar feeder on top of this hive but the feeder hole is right over where I stuck the queen cup between the frames. I really don't want to drown the queen cell in sugar water! I'll figure something out...