Hive Updates

North hive:

Booming. They filled up the first eight frames with brood in 2 weeks. Added a second box May 9. Going today for an inspection - will likely add another box today.

South Hives:

Inspected the package hive on May 3 to find no queen, some very limited brood and what looked like queen cells:

I posted this on G+ and some helpful Frenchman remarked that he thought they looked like "false" queen cells, and we in fact drone cells. I decided to leave them alone and see if they make a queen. There were still lots of bees in the hive.

Yesterday (May 16) I inspected this hive again and found that those cells had been torn down. I could not find a queen and did not see eggs or larvae. It's possible there's a queen in there who has not started laying yet, but I decided to add two frames of mixed brood to this hive anyway to prop up the numbers and give them some eggs/young larvae to work with if they want to make a new queen.

The Survivor hive is coming along nicely. It has about 10 full frames of brood as of yesterday, which is 7 full frames more than it had on May 2. Third box has 7/10 frames full of brood but I don't know if there are bees in the bottom box at all. Next time I inspect I'll likely add another box and let the honey production begin!

Plans for today are to inspect the North hive again and assess the possibility of doing a split from it. Queen cells will be available June 1 from the club's queen rearing project. 

Ohio Queen hive moved to full sized box

The Ohio Queen Initiative queen hive was previously in a 3-story, 6-frame medium nuc setup. I wanted to get it into a more standard setup with room for growth. I cleaned out one of the deadout colonies and that will now be the home for this beautiful queen!

Tearing down the hive gave me an opportunity to see how this colony is doing overall. There aren't a ton of bees in there - probably four frames worth - but the queen is laying and it looks like a decent pattern:

All of the capped honey cells that have been emptied out are now filled with brood or eggs at some stage. The laying pattern is very solid. Here's a closer look:

I left some honey frames in the hive but still put the jar of sugar water with Fumigillin-B on top of the hive. Hopefully they build up quickly and grow into a good production colony!

South Hive Inspection 08-04-2012

Things are looking good at home in Canton. Here's a rundown:

Hive 1 (package) - in upper (3rd) Medium, 6 frames drawn: 4 brood and 2 mostly honey.
Hive 2 (swarm) - in 2nd Medium, all frames drawn: about half and half. Added third box of foundationless frames and new ventilated inner cover.
Nuc - The OQI nuc is looking great, with six medium frames (all) drawn down in the bottom and starting on two in the top box. Hopefully these will get drawn out with the fall flow, which should be starting soon.

We have been getting rain over the last week and things seem to be blooming. I saw some goldenrod in our neighborhood the other day.

Still a good solid pattern in the nuc box

Another frame from the nuc, with most of these emerged

One of the foundationless frames in the package bee hive, just getting started

A foundationless frame from box 2 in the package hive. This is the outside frame in box 2.

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.

Hive Inspection at North

10:30am, 60 degrees, Sunny

I took an early lunch and went up to Essie's to inspect the hive at her place. It's doing awesome! All but one of the eight frames is fully drawn. They have not touched the last frame on the North side of the hive. There is capped brood on frames 2, 3, 4 and 5. Frame 6 has mostly uncapped nectar and a little uncapped brood. Frame 7 is all nectar, some of it capped. I emailed the SCBA list to find out if that means I should stop feeding now.

Since all but one of the frames was drawn, I added a super full of frames with the Rite Cell foundation that came yesterday. So far this hive is well ahead of the package hive at my house.

Don't buy Duragilt

Inspected the South hive today. Weather was Sunny and 64 degrees. Frames 1 and 2 were empty. Three, 4 and 5 are fully drawn and they have started on 6. There is capped worker brood on 4.

Duragilt sucks. The bees have more or less ignored it, building comb down from the top bars in some cases and attaching it to the foundation in parts. Either way, the foundation is a failure. I pulled five frames and replaced them with wired foundationless frames. If they take to it, I will go that direction. If not, I will order new plastic and try again with that.

Pics:

Nice larvae and eggs on Frame 4

Frame 5

Some capped brood on Frame 5

First inspection of North hive

On Wednesday I inspected the North hive at Essie's house. The weather was in the mid 60s and sunny. This was the first inspection of that hive since it was installed a week earlier, on April 18th. Overall this hive has been drinking more syrup than the South hive - about a half gallon in a week. That's still not much compared to what some other people's hives are drinking.

On with the inspection...

Here's the hive as it stands at the edge of the woods. Essie added a brick to the top the other day when it was windy and apparently the top cover blew off!

Here's the view under the inner cover. It doesn't look like a lot is going on but...

It's pretty busy in there! The been let their queen out and are building comb. Unfortunately, they are not building it on the foundation, which is Duragilt and is apparently trash. Instead, they are building comb down from the top bars and sort of attaching it to the foundation in places. This is bound to become a mess, so I may end up ripping out foundation on the remaining undrawn frames and either putting in beeswax foundation or leaving it completely out. I'm going to order some wax foundation and go from there.

Overall, frames 3 and 4 are drawn and they have started on frames 5 and 6 a little.

Here's a look at one of the blobs of comb they have built over the foundation. They know what they are doing; there are fresh eggs in the cells.

The queen cage is all empied out. I removed it from the frame and took off the rubber band.