July 28, 2008 - 1:30pm

Took a look at the outside area of the hive. Didn't see any ants or other bugs.

Cleaned up the pvc moats and refilled them with clean water.

This Friday I will take a look inside the honey super to see if any comb has been drawn.

July 25, 2008 - 11 am

Its been just under seven days since the queen excluder was installed. I went on site to see what the bees were doing. I only took the top cover off and looked between the honey super frames to see what kind of bee activity was taking place. There are alot of bees above the excluder milling around on it. There were not many bees on the honey super frames. I hope they are not planning on sealing up the excluder...

So far the bees have not drawn any comb in the honey super...

I didn't see any ants on the hive or hive stand.

The pvc moats need to be cleaned up a bit. And I think I will finally fix the leaks that the smaller pvc moat has so its more useful.

While I was looking around the front of the hive I noticed that the bees have been cleaning house. There were about five dead larval?! drones and about 30-40 dead workers.

July 19, 2008 - 10 am and 5:30pm

10 am visit

I installed the queen excluder.


There were about a hundred or so bees scattered amongst the ten frames in the honey super. They look like they are sizing up what the honey super is and they look like they are going to start drawing comb! I will wait a week before I open the hive to see what they do. Hopefully the bees don't propolize the queen excluder to the point where they can't get to the honey super...




5:30 pm visit

Thought I'd take a look at the hive. I didn't open it, I just took a look around the outside of the hive. I saw several hundred bees clustered around the opening of the hive. I took a closer look and saw hundreds of ants trying to get into the entrance and into any open areas. Adding the queen excluder seems to have attracted more ants than I have ever seen. The ants were all around the gap that the queen excluder creates when placed between supers. I mixed up a batch of insecticide and used a watering can to put it on the hive stand legs and on the ground around the hive.

I checked the hive an hour after putting down the insecticide and that seems to have significantly reduced the ant problem. That seemed to have stopped ants from getting to the hive, and the bees kept working on the ants that were trapped.

July 18, 2008 - 10 pm

The queen excluder arrived today! Tomorrow I will install it. I originally ordered a metal excluder but it was on back order for some time. So I opted for a plastic version.

July 16, 2008 - 10:30am

After reviewing the pictures and talking with a local Bee keeper, I put a shallow super on the hive today.

So since there is so much activity in the hive at this time, maybe the bees can have this super filled by september or so.

I looked for signs of ants on the exterior of the hive but none were to be found.

I need to repair one of the pvc moats, it no longer holds water. Seems like a weekend project to me.

Oh yeah, my bee keeper friend mentioned it might be a good idea to swap the brood chambers top to bottom since the queen is spending so much time in the top brood chamber. I think I will try that but for a week or so I will wait. My thinking is this, since the queen is now working the top brood box that will draw more workers up into the new honey super I just installed. So I have to keep a close watch on their foundation progress and if it looks good, swap the brood chambers and then add a queen excluder.

Photos from today's visit...

July 15, 2008 - 9:30 am

Finally made it on site.

I decided mid month was the time to do the sugar dusting of the bees for varroa mite issues.

I thought I would cut back on using the smoker. Last couple of visits I have not used the smoker and I didn't use it during this visit.

When I opened the top brood box there were quite a few bees on the cover milling about, doing I don't know what.

With each brood box I pulled each frame and held it in one hand and used the other hand to dispense powdered sugar using a baby powder container. That works quite well! The bees would immediately begin cleaning up the sugar and would also start grooming themselves. There buzzing also quieted down when the sugar was being dispensed

This particular process took a little longer than I thought, but it was much more thorough than just putting sugar on the top bars and sweeping it in between frames.

Since I was causing so much disruption in the hive by doing this process I didn' get many photos of the frames.

The bottom brood box had nine frames in use. The outer frame on each side, had only the inner side of the frame in use. It looked like the bees were leaving those areas clear because so many bees were on the sides of the hive fanning in those areas of the frame.

Otherwise the remaining frames looked good, with capped brood and larvae. I didn't look for new eggs, because I saw the queen in the top brood box.

The top brood box has six frames in use, with capped brood and larvae. There are several frames that have drone cells along the bottom of the frames. Looks like they do that because its easier to build bigger cells in that area.

While dusting each of the brood boxes I did my best to spot ants, hive beetles and wax moth and so far I didn't see any of them. So the girls are doing a great job of house keeping.

I am still looking into what I can do about tracheal mites. I don't really want to go with chemicals.

I showed a local beekeeper some photos I took of today's visit and described to him what I was seeing in the hive and he suggested that I should put a honey super on the hive to keep the girls busy. So tomorrow I will put one on and see how things progress. I still have not received my queen excluder so I will put the super on and hope for the best.

Heres a few photos...

July 14, 2008 - 9:30pm

Didn't make it on site this weekend. There were alot of storms in the area, making it difficult to do any bee maintenance.

I am hoping some time this week, the weather will clear up long enough to go on site and dust the bees.

July 10, 2008 - 10 am

Went on site to check on the bees. There were more ants than I wanted to see, crawling all around the hive stand. I put down some pesticide and filled up the moats. Hopefully that will take care of things for a few days.

There were about 20 or so bees in the feeder jar. It looks like they are putting down a foundation of beeswax on one side of the jar.

I did take off the top cover to peek inside. The cover was glued very well to the hive body! I didn't scrape it off, I left it to make it easier to seal out the ants and weather.

I did see the bees actively removing any ants that got in the hive. The bees appeared to bite the ants and then pick them up and move off with them.

This coming saturday I will dust the bees as long as the weather is okay.

June 7, 2008 - 7 pm

After looking through the pictures that were taken during the July 4 visit I decided to let the bees do what they will with the supercedure cells they created some time in the last six weeks.

I also found in the images, numerous cells that had brood uncapped! It looks like the bees reacted to the varroa mites and are in the process of getting rid of brood that are infected. I will post photos of that tomorrow when I get time to do that.

July 5, 2008 - 9:35 pm

Finished painting the honey supers. The frames are finished and ready for foundation. I won't install the foundation until the day I put the super(s) on the hive.

July 4, 2008 - 5:30pm

Opened up the hive today. I went through each frame of both brood supers.

The top brood chamber has 5 frames of capped brood and eggs. The remaining frames in this brood chamber are being worked by the bees for food storage and drawing out comb.

I took the top box off and set it aside once I knew the queen wasn't in there, and started looking through the bottom brood chamber.

I found what look like to me to be supercedure cells. I found about 6 of them spread out over 3 frames. Heres five photos of the situation...











So it seems the girls aren't happy with the queen's performance.

To me, she is doing great! Its three days shy of two months and the hive has filled a bottom brood chamber and half way filled a second brood chamber.

I'll have to do some research to see if I should requeen with known genetics or let the hive do what it does naturally and let them rear their own queen

I also found a frame that had eggs that I could actually see AND photograph, so I did.



I also saw a few bees hatching or whatever its called when they chew their way out of a cell.

I didn't see any signs of hive beetle or wax moth.

I did manage to find and photograph the queen.




Heres four photos of a frame from the top brood chamber.

July 1, 2008 - 10 am

Last week I received my shipment of bee supplies from Dadant & Sons. I ordered two small honey supers with frames and plast-cell foundation.

Today I started painting the supers to get them ready for a potential fall harvest.

I checked the hive today on the outside and everything looks good. I didn't see any ants or other pests. The pvc moats seem to make a difference. I noticed all kinds of strange bugs in the moats.

I finally replaced the top jar with one that has beeswax smeared all inside of it. I am still hoping the bees will fill it with comb.