May 31, 2009 - 1:00 pm

Clear skies and no breeze, temps were in the 90s.

Alpha Hive

I only opened the top honey super. They have 7 out of 10 frames with drawn comb and are in the process of capping all of it. Three frames are untouched. These frames happen to be on the north side of the hive. So my Dad and I mixed those untouched frames with drawn frames to see what they do.

I have been reluctant to get into the hive supers of this hive since it seems to be doing so well. I will leave them alone and just put another honey super on as soon as I can.


Slo-Mo movie of the Alpha hive



Beta Hive

I looked in the honey super and they still are not moving up into it to store food. I removed it and looked through the top hive super. Six frames have both sides of capped honey!!! So they have been storing food in this top hive body instead of in the honey super. I did see eggs in two of the frames in the top hive body. The eggs were positioned right down in the bottom middle of the cell, so it looks like its a queen doing that. I did not find the queen only those eggs, and capped brood in the bottom hive body.


This is a frame from the top hive body of the Beta Hive. This is what the six frames that are capped looked like.

May 25, 2009 - 1:30pm

It was cloudy, overcast and 80º, light breeze and thunderstorms with rain moving in.

Both Hives have a lot of mold/mildew on the exterior areas. I will have to clean that up next visit

Alpha Hive

There was a lot of noise and activity at the hive. There were 70 or so bees hanging out on front of bee entrance and landing area. There were many bees coming and going and it was easy to see how much pollen they were bringing in. I think most of the noise was coming from the gathering cluster of bees at the bottom of the screened bottom board. This is the same type of activity that the Beta hive was doing shortly before they swarmed.

I opened up the honey super and there were a lot of bees in there. They have spread out to cover eight of ten frames. They are still largely clustered in the five middle frames working on them.

I did not go through those frames or the rest of the hive because of the rainy weather.


This is a photo of the bees in the top honey super( so far only one is installed...)


This is another photo like the one above...



These girls were clustered to this rock I used to cover the feeder jar hole


This is what the Alpha hive looks like most of the day


Another Alpha Hive pic...






Beta Hive

The activity outside the hive seems to be picking up. The bees seem to be foraging more lately.

The solar ventilator that I installed was removed today. Its not square enough to fit well enough on the hive for the bees to propolize against the elements.

I saw that there were a lot of bees in the top hive body but none in the honey super. The bees are closing off sections of the queen excluder with wax and propolis. So I went ahead and removed the queen excluder to see if that is what is stopping them from moving into the honey super.


If the weather is suitable this week I would like to inspect both hives.

May 16, 2009 - 2 pm

It was 95º, very little breeze, partly cloudy at the Bee Yard.

Alpha Hive
There were a hundred, maybe more bees hanging out at the front of the hive. There were a lot of bees flying around the front of the hive as well as bringing in food.

Opened up the honey super and discovered that the girls finally moved in!!!

Five of the honey super frames in the middle have comb being drawn and already have curing nectar in the cells. The bees have just started drawing comb on two more frames but have not stored any honey.

All of this activity has been going on since removal of the queen excluder on May 9th. I am hoping that the girls don't swarm, because right now they are doing a great job of storing surplus honey.

I put the honey super back together and did not get any deeper into the hive.

Beta Hive
Some activity at the hive entrance. Not much activity around front of hive.

Opened up the honey super. Still nothing going on in there. Removed it to look in the top brood super. I went through each frame. There are still four frames full of honey, of those three are capped. The remaining frames have about 85% honey/pollen, with the remaining space filled with capped brood. It seems that the bees are storing honey in the top brood super instead of the honey super. I removed the top brood super to begin looking through the bottom brood super. There were a lot of bees in the bottom brood super, they started to "boil out" so I changed my mind about going through the frames. I put everything back in place. I think I will remove the queen excluder and see what they do.

A few weeks ago I put together a solar powered hive ventilator. Today I installed it on the Beta Hive.

May 10, 2009 - 12 pm

It was hot today at the bee yard. It was 95º slight breeze and clear skies.

I did not want to disturb the girls today so I took pictures and captured a few movies

Alpha Hive

This hive is very active at the entrance area and in front of hive. There were quite a few bees hanging out on the front of the hive. There were also a lot of bees bringing in pollen and other resources.

Beta Hive

At 12:30 pm there was not much activity at the entrance of the hive or in front of it. At 4:30pm however there were much more bees than what I have seen at any other time of the day. So it looks like thats when most of the foragers return

May 9, 2009 - 10:30am

At the bee yard it was 88º, light breeze and partly cloudy.

Alpha Hive

At the entrance there was a lot of bees coming and going and a lot flying around in front of the hive, it was very busy.

Opened up the honey super and found that the girls are not doing anything in it! Removed it and started looking through the top hive body frames.

Found a lot of capped brood, some eggs and larva. So the queen is there somewhere...

Noticed that there were a lot of bees packed in the top hive body and the bottom hive body. Wish they would get busy in the honey super.

While looking through the frames for signs of the queen I found three frames( top hive body, outer two frames one side and two frames other side) full of honey / capped honey.

Put all the frames back in order.

Since the girls seem reluctant to go into the honey super, I removed the queen excluder.


Beta Hive

Activity at the entrance and front of hive was minimal. The were only a few bees coming and going and just four-six at most at the entrance area.

Opened up the honey super and there were no signs of activity. Removed the honey super to look through the top hive body frames.

There were significantly less bees in this top super than I have seen in the past. While looking through the frames I found some capped brood cells but not many like I was seeing from about a month ago. I didn't see any eggs, but I did see larva maturing.

In this top hive body four frames were filled with honey. Again its the outer frames that have the honey. Two frames have been completely filled and capped, the other two are filled with honey but only partially capped.

So I removed the top hive body and put it aside since I couldn't find signs of the queen or the queen.

I found some capped brood much like the top brood box. I couldn't see any eggs. The number of bees were also alot less than what I have seen in the past. I did find the queen but she looked alot smaller than a month ago.

For the last three weeks there was a massive buildup of bees, a decline in egg laying and now a significant decrease in the bee population. The beta hive appears to have swarmed.

I am hoping this new queen will get things going again and maybe I'll have some honey this year.

2 May, 2009 - 1 pm

It was 86º, light wind, partly cloudy at the bee yard.

Alpha Hive

Outside and at the entrance there was a lot of activity, much more than the beta hive. I opened the honey super and found that the girls are not doing anything in it!

I removed the honey super and began inspecting the frames of the top hive body. I looked through 7 of the ten frames. I found eggs so the queen is there and busy. I noticed that the top hive body has a couple of frames that are filled with honey and pollen. I am hoping they will have a surplus.

Three slo-mo Movies of the entrance area of the Alpha Hive







Beta Hive

It didn't seem as busy as it usually is outside at the entrance, but there were some bees coming and going.

Opened up the top honey super to see what the girls were doing. There were a lot of bees in the north side of the honey super on two frames but I could not tell if there was any comb being drawn. The rest of the honey super frames didn't have the bees on them.

I removed the honey super to look through the frames of the top hive body.

I looked through 8 out of ten frames. I didn't bother looking through the last two frames.

The eight frames had a lot of eggs and larva at different stages of maturation.

There seemed to be plenty of capped brood among the frames. I noticed that of the 8 frames 3 frames had only honey and some of the honey was capped. Hopefully the girls will move up into the honey super.


Beta Hive Photos

This is the tenth frame in the top hive super. The girls have begun drawing comb!!! Hopefully they will begin this process in the honey super




This is frame 9 or 8, either way this is what they look like right now! That frame is loaded with uncapped honey...




In these next 2 photos, couple of hatchlings can be seen chewing through the wax cell caps getting ready to climb out into the hive.





This is a closer shot of the previous image...





These three photos are of the same frame. Eggs can be seen, as well as several bees climbing out of their cells...









This is a slo-mo movie of the activity happening under the Beta Hive today