Mortuary duties and other questions.

[Gypsi]

I think the robbing is going to come to an end. Our flow is all ragweed, but I saw a bee come back to the hive this morning, her legs doubled in size by yellow pollen. I'm still feeding on an open feeder in the yard, but reducing the amounts.

During the attacks, a fair number of bee bodies (maybe 40 or 50) ended up on top of the sbb, and were not removed. I was reducing and further reducing entrance size, down to about 1/2 inch wide before I moved the hive, by 3/8 tall, so they may not have been able to. I shook the bodies off the sbb onto the ground.

I went chasing moth larva this morning, and the frame above the spot on my sticky board where I saw 3 or 4 tiny larva last night, was the same frame I was chasing a moth on a week ago. it is in the freezer.

Still did not see the queen, did not check for larva or eggs. Did remove the extra frames from the center of the brood nest, went down to 9 frames on the deep to give the ladies some room. scraped the burr comb that was connecting super to deep and causing the brood nest to "thud" off when I lifted the super.

Put a piepan with eggcrate under my hive top feeder, to catch the drips and not drown the bees, with 1.5 :1 syrup. (Read Michael Bush's article, 3/5 is too complicated math for me this morning).

Got all done. Deep back on the Country Rubes bottom board, then super, queen excluder, feeder, empty deep, screen top, telescoping lid. And discover that what used to be the front of the deep brood box is now the back.

How important is it?

Gypsi

[fish_stix]

Why do you have an excluder above the super, between your top super and the feeder? In fact, why are you using an excluder at all? You need to keep 10 frames in the brood box or you'll have a mess of wild comb and comb drawn out too thick so that there's no avoiding killing a ton of bees when you remove a frame. The frames give you the right spacing, don't worry about the bees having enough room.

[Gypsi]

Now that you mention it, why do I have an excluder above the top super? Originally it was there to hold the upturned bucket feeder, and the bees could feed through it. Although I think mostly it caused seepage where it touched the bucket near openings. with a pan under the bucket feeder now, I can remove the excluder.
I'll put the 10th frame back in the morning, it's in the freezer. Or I can add a clean piece of waxed plastic frame to the brood box tonight when they are sleeping. I ordered some extras from dadant.

Thank you. I'm still fumbling my way through this. Didn't know my deep was on backwards til I saw the cover branch from when I moved them hanging on the back. I removed it. Reckon they'll have to go exploring now.

Do you think they will resume "dead bee removal" now that the robbers have quieted down? (still feeding robbers, I'll put my anti-robbing screen on before I stop.)