Adding second deep body to 2008-A

Last week when we cracked this hive open the honey super was pretty well drawn out and we found plenty of nectar, honey, larvae and capped brood. I knew they would soon outgrow this super so today we put a deep body between the honey super and the existing deep body. We also placed a queen excluder on top of the new hive body. (new hive body is one I built)

"We" this week was Rick F. and me. Rick's first time opening hives. He's thinking about putting a hive at his place in town. He also did the photography for today.



The above was probably the least filled frame of the honey super. But you can see how wonderfully drawn out the comb is!


In this photo we've finished with 2008-A, on left, and I'm smoking 2008-B. B's top body is just cover for a syrup feeder. Today, I filled the feeder with some syrup I had left over from A and just made sure they're not getting too cramped.

Hive-A Queen search continues...

I'm not fretting too much as I have seen larvae in the last couple of openings, but I'd like to find a queen since I have seen a swarm cell and they were quite crowded for a couple of days.



This time I've enlisted another pair of eyes in my friend Gregg.





He also gets to play photographer so you can see me in my snazzy new beekeeper coveralls. Speaking of which, for under $35 I got them personalized with my name and the farm name. They are zip-up to about mid-chest where there are two buttons that are mostly under my veil. They have great utility pockets for hive tools and a bee brush. I highly recommend getting a pair from www.automotiveworkwear.com (For the first time I had a bee, actually two, get under my veil. I'm not sure how, but I think a bit of Velcro between those buttons might do the trick.)

Hive-A had a shallow super of new foundation placed on it about two weeks ago. All the frames were drawn out and many were full of nectar. The frame pictured was the least drawn out of the ten. Incredible work.
After sifting through those 10 frames with no queen or larvae it's time to open the large body.

I wanted to start with the frame that has the SHB trap as it was looking like mostly drone comb and if I'm going to put any frame on the ground while I sort through the others I want it to be this one. I really think a frame support on the side of the hive is the way to go.




Looking at the frame you can see some of the cells are slightly bigger than the average cell and you can even see capped drone larvae, indicated by the protruding cappings.







This is a great shot, a girl poking out of her capping... just about to emerge. My smoker had already burned itself out and the hive had been open for so long already that we didn't mess with waiting around.




I was more confident about the hive being queen right as I was seeing more and more larvae that looked a ways from being capped, but I still wanted to find out if I had the original queen. We found her on frame 19B. Finally.

All's well with 2008-A. On Wednesday I'll check 2008-B and see if all the activity last week was pre-swarm or them just being pissy about the lawnmower.

(you can see where the Velcro will go!)

Lawn Mower and hives

Of course I've read all the stories about having to mow around the apiary with full gear since the bees don't much care for the mower....but I mowed without wearing any.

I was probably 20 feet from the hive and thought it wouldn't bother them. First pass I peeked over and all looked fine. Second time around Hive-B had a bunch of bees flying around the outside and crawling out the bottom.

I don't know if it was because of the mower or if they're running out of space or what. Weather isn't good the next couple of days to check them.

Expanding Hive A

As I expected, they had completely drawn out the 9 frames and most of the Small Hive Beetle trap frame was drawn out with drone size cells.

Unfortunately, I found a swarm cell on one frame. Only one. I can only guess that if they wait for the swarm cells before swarming that with only one built they haven't swarmed. I cut this cell out and continued looking for her---to no avail.

Went ahead and added a shallow body of new foundation hoping this ceases any swarm ideas and trims down the outside population.

Visual Inspection

During my daily afternoon check on the hives, I noticed a lot of bees around 2008-A. Flying in, flying out, hanging on the front...everywhere. I can only guess they've pretty much filled the 10 frames and are looking for some more space.

Routine Check

Opened Hive A and all looks well even though I didn't find the queen. Did find larvae, both capped and not, so if she's gone it hasn't been long. They had finished the last syrup I gave them and had most of their frames drawn out so I pulled the syrup.

Opened Hive B and all still looks great! Probably a full 5 frames drawn out. They had also finished their syrup but I wanted to replace the top feeder with an inverted pail feeder inside a large hive body. I'm thinking this will cut down on my ants and other insects (roaches, unknown beetle) trying to rob from the top feeder. I made the large body that went around the new feeder. My second piece of carpentry on the hives! (first was the shallow body surrounding the top feeder I'm removing.) Hive B has capped brood and is well on its way.

Looking for 2008-B Queen

Didn't get a chance to open the hive over the weekend so made an adventure of it after work.

First things first, I noticed the queen had gotten out of her cage. After removing her cage I had to remove all the wonderful comb they had built in the wide space between the frames where the cage was hanging.

Not knowing what else to do with it I put it on a table directly in front of their hive hoping they could steal some of the nectar and/or pollen back. (Every time I looked at it over the next week there were bees on it. After the comb starting melting onto the table I pulled it all and froze it.)

Having no other personal comparison than Hive A, it seems this hive has been very productive. The aforementioned comb would constitute an entire frame and there were four other frames that were almost half full of comb---most of it being filled with pollen.

I did find B-Queen and she's already laying!

Everything got sticky after handling all that comb. Hopefully this will be the last time I forgot my rubbing alcohol sprayer as I was too messy to take pictures of the rest of the work.

I opened 2008-A to put a Small Hive Beetle trap frame in place of one of the frames not drawn out yet.

Sugar Syrup

Noticed on Wednesday that both hives were almost out of sugar syrup. Made a double batch and let it cool until yesterday afternoon, Thursday. 2008-B definitely got most of it as they're still drawing out comb on the foundation, and I dabbled a little into 2008-A. I'll pull theirs when I add the next box--probably a week from tomorrow.

Didn't notice any Small Hive Beetles, but did see a number of ants in both feeders. I've decided that as long as I don't see anymore than a dozen I won't take extreme measures. I guess they've been known to feed on SHB larvae and that's a good thing!