Monday, June 28, 2010

Hive inspection 06-27-10

Took a look at the hive yesterday. Nice hot sunny day, so tons of bees out and about. I added a super to the hive body 3 weeks ago, so I was keen to see what progress they made. Sure enough they've been busy drawing comb in the new super. There were 1 or 2 frames where the queen had already laid some brood. You can see from this pic that some of it is already capped.

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I didn't remove the super to inspect the hive body this time, I'll probably do that in a future visit since I need to try to level the hive and I'd like to do all that at once.

I have noticed quite an increase in the number of bees around, so it seems like things are going well. I recently bought a top feeder, so I set that up and added a gallon of water to it before closing up the hive. Hopefully it helps 'em out.


Sunday, June 20, 2010

Inspection update

Did an inspection this weekend 2 weeks after adding the first super to my hive.

1) Bees are making progress drawing out comb in the upper super.

2) They have also been buildig burr comb, which I scraped away.

3) Also noting propolis for the first time, they've been sealing all the edges of the hive where the boxes meet.

4) Got my first sting. Ouch! Funny enough, it was at the very end of the inspection when I was reassembling the hive. In puttig on the super I crushed some bees which came out on the edge of the brood chamber. That appears to have really pi$$ed them off, and one promptly got me on the forearm. Good news - I'm still alive, so clearly not allergic.

5) Lots more bees than in early weeks, I noted many frames of brood. The queen has clearly been busy.

6) Watching the hive at mid-day the next day, a nice sunny hot day, it was remarkable to see the amount of activity outside. Looked like JFK airport on Thanksgiving weekend.

Monday, June 7, 2010

4th week inspection

Things are moving along in the hive, I added a super this week since the bees have drawn out much of the comb.



Here's a slideshow with more pics: