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Hive Two Inspection

Saturday, April 30th, 2011

I removed the top feeder with the following observations:

  • feeder was dry of syrup
  • A carpenter ant nest had moved in 100s of ant winged and unwinged in the black basen
  • Hive bees agitated beneath the screen

Removed the feeder nocking ants to the ground.  Replaced with Queen excluder and two honey supers (C & D).  Honey super C has no built up wax and is closest to the hive bodies.  Honey super D was harvested from last year and has wax, it is the top most super.

Removed empty tin of  Apiguard from hive.

Hive looked healthy, with minimal activity at entrance

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Hive Two April Opening

Sunday, April 17th, 2011

 

Activities

  • Cleaned out bottom board
  • removed insulation board from outer cover
  • swapped brood hives B is now on the top have D is now on the bottom
  • removed mouse guard
  • feed bees with top feeder 1/2 gallon 1:1 sugar syrup w/ 1/2 tsp fumagillin-b
  • treated for mites with 1 tin Apiguard

Observations

  • Bees in all frames or both brood hives
  • bee larva ready to hatch in between brood hives
  • lots of activity with entrances primarily to propped top entrance
  • saw hive beetle on one larva
  • propilis and dead bees on screened bottom board

Thoughts

  • removed mouse guard as bees were not using as an entrance
  • consider feeding 1/2 gallon more food in 5 days
  • remove Apiguard tin and put on both honey supers in 10 days

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Hive Two Winter Configuraion 2010-2011

Saturday, March 19th, 2011

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Hive Two Pictures

Saturday, March 19th, 2011

Hive two had a large number of dead bees at the entrance, this was to be expected as I had not cleaned them off.  The tar paper had also came loose and was removed.  The streaks on the top have appeared over the winter and could be signs of nosema.

 

 

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Bee Candy Feeding

Tuesday, March 8th, 2011

I am moving my bee journal online after four years of trying to keep bees.  As of Tuesday March 8th I have two hives with live bees.  I fed them ‘bee candy’ today as it has been a snowy winter and I was afraid their honey stores were low.  The recipe can be found in Chapter 7 of “The Beekeepers Handbook” by Alphonse Avitabile, Diana Sammataro and Roger A. Morse.

Weather when I opened the hive was ~40 degrees F  and clear, both hives were in shadow as it was 4:30PM.  I easily placed the candy under the inner cover in the first hive (Hive One).  I  noticed a large number of bees at the top of the hive next to the inner cover.

The second hive (Hive Two) was much more difficult, the bees attacked me causing me to leave the candy on top of the inner cover.  This hive is healthier but the bees are much more aggressive.  Bees in this box were also clustered near the inner cover.  I killed at least 20 bees from this hive attempting to drop the candy into the hive.

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