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Today in the Apiary

686K views 4K replies 397 participants last post by  AR1 
#1 ·
I will stick this thread at the top so we can have sort of a beekeepers diary. It will be neat to look back in time, in time. Share what work you did, observations, stories about things that happened in the apiary. Musings while you have your morning coffee while watching the bees. Let's see where this goes.

I checked a new swarm that moved into some empty boxes I had stacked about 5 days ago. Saw the queen when I transferred them into a new hive with frames of foundation. They're building comb, but filling every cell with nectar/feed. No eggs. Will have to put a frame with eggs into it right away.
 
#94 · (Edited)
Hi gnor ! I'm afraid that won't work with my set up , my stands are all open under the hive . What I have is a dial type spring scale with a 110 lb capacity . My plan is to have an upright with a lever hinged on top , the scale hangs from it . There will be a chain attached to the bottom of the scale with a hook that will catch under the handle to lift . This way I can lift the front then back and add the two for a total weight . That will work up to a total hive weight of around 200+ pounds , when they get heavier than that I have a lever arrangement designed to double (or triple) the capacity . I need to stop by the steel supply tomorrow while I'm in town running errands , I have stock on hand but it's not really well suited to this task . Owning a machine shop makes many things a lot easier ...
 
#95 ·
Inspected my hives today, the one that was queenless and then requeened has brood again, I was super happy to see. My brother in law came out to see my inspecting. He was amazed how calm the bee's were.. I'm just glad I was working the nice hive. I tasted my bee's honey for the first time it was very good, gave my brother in law a taste too.. Feeling more confident every day, although not always with the pissy hive, but that may have been the queen issues so I may give them a pass for there bad behavior. But I don't trust them. The nice hive I am very at ease with and could work with out protection I have no plans of doing that but I really think I could they are just super calm and very busy!
 
#96 ·
I had a pleasant day. Clean up supers and set out two swarm traps. My koi fish came out after spending three days
hidden under the stone ledges. The bees come to the sandy beach i made for them. A few weeks back I made two
nucs. I gave one to a neighbor beek down the road, as he lost his hives last winter, this evening. His wife was so pleased
to have bees again. Aint life grand ! But oh boy i hope they don't come robbing .
 
#97 ·
Got a slight break of sun. Refilling feeder jars. Got into one of the strong hives. The bees were drawing sunflower yellow wax as opposed to the more usual cream/light yellow. I've seen it before, but not that often - kind of cool :cool:

Rain, rain & more rain. I finally heard a forecaster mention "Monsoon".:rolleyes:
 
#101 ·
Making Sugar syrup to feed my bees, after my new "young" Amish Mentor does an inspection this afternoon. Both my packages killed their marked Queens, and both had 2 virgins in the boxes. We are eagerly looking for eggs. I called the gentleman that I picked up the packages from and he said that he has had numerous calls about them killing the Queens in this shipment only. What do the bees know that we don't?
 
#106 ·
Was with a friend when he dumped two or three pallets of hives into a canal in an orange grove. We jumped in and started pulling out equipment as fast as we could before things sank. Picked up a cover with a bunch of bees on it and there was a queen. Jokingly said we should raise queens from this one because she knows how to swim.
 
#109 ·
Yesterday actually. I've been hosting weekly apiary sessions every Saturday morning since early April - open to anyone who is interested.

7-8 Participants this week (I think) We inspected 2 colonies with honey supers above excluders. Inspected for general health and queen status as indicated by brood - not every frame by frame and not searching for queens. Upgraded 2 mating nucs to larger setups. Marked some drones - once using a marking tube, and once with just fingers, just to show how marking works. For once I did it pretty well during a demo - usually I fumble. Lucky this time I guess.
 
#110 · (Edited)
Grass Plant Fungus Lawn
Grass Beehive Insect Apiary Grass family


Trying to add more photos Grass Beehive Insect Apiary Grass family
L Beehive Honeybee Insect Bee Apiary
. Bee Insect Beehive Honeybee Membrane-winged insect


The first pic is while working, second is about 5 hours later, lastly the hive.

While at the hives last week, 3 frames were taken from my center hive. Not sure if someone is really upset with me or just a prank/dare on someone else's part. The inner cover was pretty heavy when I realized what was going on I just closed it up and waited on my shipment of another outer cover. With plenty of frames/drawn comb and frames with starter strip I felt pretty confident I could handle this on my own.

Once opened, I rested the inner cover onto the feeder box, replaced the missing frames and added another box with carrying drawn comb and frames with starter strip. Gave the hive sugar water w/HBO to jump start more wax production and I am slightly worried how many bees (nurse) may have perished. I lifted the inner cover and tried to upright it (the goal was to lift and have the length work with me heading up vertically and not horizontally, needless to say this was a very windy day too. I could feel it leaning right and the first comb to the right broke off, with the others leaning to I turned the direction of the lean hence the way it sits now. I really did not want. To band all of this comb into empty frames as populated as it was knowing nurse bees are pretty insistent to stay with their purpose of duty.

Right now I do worry about the attraction this maybe to wax moths, mice, etc., that I may have doomed my hive anyway. The most positive is the hive and both others are full of bees. Added another box to the other two.

I was pretty nervous yet not one head butt today or sting. All in all three hives are thriving.
 
#113 ·
Checked a split today that made it's own queen and found very young brood. So rewarding to see that. The queen was hatched about 18 days ago. The second split off the same hive doesn't look like the queen made it. No sign of it and no eggs. The cells came from extras in the first split. I will combine in a week if there's still no sign of a queen and try again later. I started with one strong and growing hive and plan to split as much as i can and winter them in an old house.
 
#115 ·
Checked all four of my hives yesterday. Added a deep to one that had filled out its first deep. Rearranged a few frames in a honey super so they'd not neglect the empty frames. Some drone comb on the bottom of one of the super frames. One super was full of new white comb full of uncapped honey - so beautiful. Very nice bees, gently humming (one can really appreciate pleasant bees after having an aggressive, inhospitable one like one of last years hives).
 
#118 ·
found out that I don't care how cool/tough/macho someone may feel in the bee yard without protection...stings to the forehead and neck suck!

Also, dishgloves + mechanix gloves = perfect. I could watch the bees stinging their butts off (literally! lol) and I'm still able to type this post!
 
#120 ·
Today, I'm inside because it's raining (thank goodnees, we really need it!) but yesterday I checked on all my hives.

In my second Snelgrove split I have two frames with queen cells (a onesie and one-and-a-quarter-sie). I decided to leave both in the split rather move one to a queen castle since the second queen cell on the one with two doesn't look too viable, so essentially I only have two cells in there. I really expected more, so I must have misjudged the egg/larvae ages on what I thought were good candidate frames. Or they have already made and torn down a lot more. There was some evidence of that possibility. Anyway I'm leavin' it up to the bees. I also checked all the boxes below the Snelgrove for any signs of swarm cells, and saw nothing.

Late last winter I asked for help to learn the technique of just tipping the ends of the boxe up for swarm-cell checks. And I got several helpful replies. It was on my to-do skill list for this summer and I'm happy to say that armed with the comments I got here I tackled it and now do it all the time. So much easier than pulling frames. And contrary to my anxieties, I haven't had any slip-offs. Many thanks to BS for this!

Afterward that I checked the progress of split from last year, and added a deep with some moved-up brood to get them drawing it out as I am on a draw-the-deep kick this year.

Then I checked on a hive that superceded and happily found a huge, fat, new queen in possession. And she's been laying up a storm for at least four or five days judging from the brood stages. Buttercup (the parent queen of this hive) is separated and awaiting her new digs. She is only doing so-so. But at least she's still hanging in, for now.

I admired my first Snelgrove split from the outside, but didn't bother it since I expect to poke around in it for queenrightness on Wednesday, the 24th day. The two bonus splits from this hive that are in the queen castle are really rockin' so I'm hoping there's a good new queen above the board, for me to keep. I'll know on Wednesday - it's like waiting for Christmas, when you're five!

I looked at my friend's hive that I am babysitting for the summer and they seem to have settled down nicely after their move to my yard.

Commercial beeks with hundreds of hives will laugh at my exertions over such a paltry few hives. But it's a big deal to me to feel llke I know what I need to do, can get it done, deal with the unexpecteds that always arise and feel, at the end of a days' work, that my colonies are all in good order and progressing well. I haven't forgotten the bewildered and frustrated sense of panic that marked my first summer.

Enj.
 
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