31 December, 2010 - 7 pm

On 30 December, replaced the Feeder jar for the backyard bees. Weather permiting I will check the jar on Monday.

22 Dec, 2010 - 12:30pm

It was 61 degrees at the Back yard bees. Skies were cloudy with light winds.

Replaced the feeder jar today. There were a lot of bees roaming around in the top area where the jar is located. Hopefully the bees don't build any comb in there.

19 December, 2010 - 11:30 am

On 17 Dec. a feeder jar was replaced for the Beta hive. The Alpha & Swarm hive did not need replacement.

At the Bee Yard - 2:00 pm

It was 51 degrees, clear skies

Swarm hive - replaced feeder jar. Noticed a few dead bees at entrance area. Noticed bees may have bee diarea!!!! Hope its not nosema...need to look up treatments.

Alpha hive - replaced feeder jar. Lots of bees flying about.

Because I have feeder jars on the hives, I left the inner cover on, so a small hole is there. I covered that hole so the bees use the main entrance instead if this hole.

16 December, 2010 - 10:00 am

it was 64 degrees at the Backyard hive. It was overcast and slightly windy.

Replaced the empty feeder jar.

My Dad checked the hives on his property, so I need to find out if he replaced the feeder jars.

11 December, 2:30pm - 2010

It was 61º at the Back Yard Bee colony. Light winds, partly cloudy.

I contacted a couple of local beekeepers to find out if I should leave honey supers on the hive for the winter. They said it would be best to remove the supers because if left on, hive beetles or wax moth may be a problem.

So today I harvested 18 frames of honey. The total weight is just over 45 pounds. The total honey harvest this season is 181 pounds.

At the Bee Yard in the country I checked on the feeder jars.

Alpha hive - only consumed quarter of a cup
Beta hive - half cup consumed
Swarm hive - quarter cup consumed.

Did not see any signs of ants at any of the hives.

9 Dec, 11am - 2010

Today my Dad checked the feeder jars and found that the bees are not consuming very much sugar water.

4 December, 11 am - 2010

It was about 60º at the Back Yard Hive. Windy and partly cloudy.

This is the first time in about three weeks or so that I opened up the hive. I wanted to make sure the bees have plenty of food for the winter. This hive has two honey supers and two brood boxes. The top honey super has about 5 frames of capped honey, the second honey super has all frames of capped honey! I will leave this for the bees. The top hive body has about four frames that are all honey. The bees fill the second honey super and they fill the top hive body and the fill about half of the bottom hive body. I didn't see any wax moth or larva at this time.

It was about 62º at the Bee Yard at my parents house. It was windy and partly cloudy.
Today I wanted to check on the bees and see if I need to feed any of the hives.

Swarm Hive
This hive has one honey super and two hive bodies.
I opened the hive and discovered that there are very few bees in this hive. The fill about 6 frames of a hive body. The bees covered about four frames in the honey super. So I removed the bottom hive body and left the honey super since that had honey and pollen. I started feeding the bees 1:1 sugar water today. I will continue to feed them until they stop taking the food.

Alpha Hive
This hive has one honey super and two hive bodies.
There was a lot of hive entrance activity.
I opened this hive and found that the bees cover are scattered all over the frames in the honey super and they cover about seven frames in both hive bodies. I didn't see any wax moth or larva. I started feeding the bees 1:1 sugar water today and I will continue to feed them until they stop taking the food.

Beta Hive
This hive has one honey super and two hive bodies.
There was was a lot of hive entrance activity.
I opened the hive and found the honey super full of bees, they filled all frames of the honey super. They also filled eight frames of the top hive body. I didn't check the second lower hive body. I started feeding the bees 1:1 sugar water today and I will continue to feed them until they stop taking the food.

31 October, 4 pm - 2010

It was about 78º in the back yard, clear skies light winds.

Backyard Bees
The hive had three honey supers. I removed one since it was not being used in any way by the bees. So now the top one has about 20 or so pounds and the bottom one has maybe 10 pounds scattered throughout the frames. The top hive body has about 6 frames three quarters covered with capped honey, these frames are 1,2,3 and 8,9,10. I did find fresh eggs, and I didn't see any problems so the inspection stopped at that point and I put everything back together.

Bee Yard

Removed the Apiguard containers and spacers from the Swarm and Beta Hive.

Swarm Hive
Didn't do an inspection. But the bee population is a lot smaller than I expected for this time of year. Looks like the varroa mites have really hurt this hive. Hopefully I can keep them going this fall and winter.

Beta Hive
The bees were not as busy at the entrance as the other two hives, they seemed to all be in the top hive body and honey super. They fill about one and a half hive bodies.

Alpha Hive
Top honey super is pretty light. I will begin feeding this hive as soon as I have some sugar.

At the Bee yard is was about 82º and windy.

Put in place the second dose of Apiguard for the Swarm hive and Beta Hive.

Swarm Hive
The bees cleaned up quite a bit of the Apiguard meds. I am considering removing the honey super to prevent hive beetle problems late in the year. If I do that I'll extract it and mix it with water and feed it to the bees over the next few weeks and the rest of the winter.

Beta hive
There is about 20 pounds of honey in the honey super. Most of the bees are in the top hive body. I'll probably remove that super, extract the honey and feed it back to the bees over the winter.

Alpha Hive
Bees are in both hive bodies and the cluster is pretty tight even though temperatures aren't that cold.

Working on modifying the migratory covers so that 3-4 mason jars can be installed.

16 October, 2010 - 2 pm

It was 81º, clear skies and breezy at the Bee Yard.

Swarm Hive & Beta Hive
Put a Apiguard patch in between the honey super and the top hive body. I hope this will help with the varroa mites. I did not go through and do a hive inspection this visit.

Alpha Hive
Harvested 7 frames of honey from the top honey super. Now the hive only has one honey super installed and that will be removed before the weather gets too cold. I did not do a hive inspection during this visit.

Honey Harvest was just over 21 pounds from the 7 frames. I will bottle it tomorrow!

1 Oct, 2010 - 2 pm

At the back yard bee hive it was 83º and partly cloudy.

Backyard Bees
There has been a lot of activity at the hive entrance the last couple of weeks. At around 1:30 pm or so every few days of this last week, there were several thousand bees that would swirl up and around the front of the hive for a few minutes then they would settle on the front of the hive and go back in. I am guessing its a swarm type behavior, but I have not seen my other hives do this.

Today's inspection
The top honey super has 4 frames that are capped and the rest are full of honey and are slowing being capped. There are hundreds of bees in this super working the frames. The middle honey super also has many bees but there is not much honey being stored in it. The bottom honey super has a few hundred bees but they are scattered throughout the frames and do not appear to be drawing comb or storing food in this honey super.

Top hive body
Frame 1 has a lot of comb building happening and the bees are storing some honey and pollen on it. Frame 2 has one side partially covered with honey and pollen, but not very much. the other side has mostly capped brood and eggs and some larva. No food stores on this side. Frame 3 both sides are covered in capped brood, eggs and larva. Same with frame 4. Frame 5 south side is just like frame 3, don't know about the north side didn't remove frame. Stopped inspection at that time. Looks like there is a queen because of finding so many fresh eggs.

Bottom hive body
Didn't look through it at this time.


At the Country Bee yard it was 82º, partly cloudy.

Swarm Hive
The honey super has 4 frames that are capped! The rest are full of honey and are being capped.

Top Hive Body
Noticed that some of the bees have varroa mites, even found a couple bees that had deformed wings. Started inspection at frame 10. It is a foundation only frame, no comb drawn or any kind of work very light frame no honey stored but a lot of pollen on the north side and south side( this is a food frame). Frame 8 has only capped brood, eggs and larva no honey stored and very little pollen




Alpha Hive

Beta Hive

27 Sept, 2010

Yesterday I checked on the Backyard bees. I looked through the top honey super and found frames 4, 5 and 6 ready for harvest. The rest of the frames have honey in them and are slowly being capped. The bottom honey super has a lot of bees but not much storage going on. I looked through frames 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the top hive body. I found fresh eggs as well as larva and capped brood. I didn't inspect any further.

Today
Backyard Bees
At about 1:30pm there was a few thousand bees swirling around in front of the hive. It really looked like the start of a swarm. But then the bees settled back on the hive and went inside. There were still hundreds of bees doing orientation flights for awhile but none of the swarmlike activity.

18 September,2010 - 9 am

It was 82º at the Bee Yard. Clear skies with light winds.

Swarm Hive
Honey super has 9 out of 10 frames full of honey. They continue to cap the frames. I don't think I will be able to take any honey from this hive. I did find the queen on frame 8. I also found fresh eggs, larva and some capped brood. The hive temperament was good throughout the inspection. Buttoned everything up and put down some insecticide to deal with the ants.

Beta Hive
Honey super has a few hundred bees but there is not much food storage happening. Top hive body, I had the ten frames checkerboarded. Five frames have brood/food and five frames are foundation, slowly being worked by the bees. Today I shuffled the frames around so that all of the brood frames are together in the center of the hive body and the foundation frames are on the "outside" of the brood frames. While going through these frames I found the queen and fresh eggs! It was about that time I noticed a swirling mass of bees collecting on a lower branch of a cypress tree about 15 feet from the hive. I put the Beta hive back together and went over to check out the swarm. The swarm was about the size of a softball and getting bigger as the bees settled in. The swarm was coming from some trees about 75' away. So I am hoping it was not from the Beta hive. The swarm bees look a lot like the Beta hive bees. So, since I did see the queen and I found fresh eggs today, I will look for fresh eggs in 7 days to make sure the swarm was not from the Beta Hive.


Alpha Hive

17 September, 2010 - 10 am

Its 87º, clear skies and no breeze at the Back Yard Hive.

Back Yard Bees.
The top honey super has nine frames of honey. Three frames are 3/4 capped and the rest are being capped. There are many bees working in this super.

The middle honey super is very light and although there are many bees in the super they appear to be building/repairing comb.

Bottom honey super has a few bees in it and they are not really doing anything in this super.

Top hive body has a large number of bees throughout the frames. Frame 1 is a food frame and one side is covered in uncapped honey, on the other side the bees are drawing comb and storing pollen and nectar. Frame 2 has one side eggs/larva/capped brood and a border of honey and pollen, same with other side. Frame 3 has one whole side of fresh eggs! The other side is like frame 2. After finding that I put the hive back together. I didn't get any photos this time.

The hive temperament is good. I didn't use the smoke that much. These bees are very calm bees.

12 September, 2010 - 9 am

Bee Yard

Alpha Hive
Harvested 4 shallow super frames. The rest were not completely capped.
From the top hive body I removed 5 frames to provide more brood space. These frames curing honey and some pollen.

Beta Hive
Did not inspect hive, too busy with Alpha hive.

2 pm

This afternoon I extracted the honey from the frames removed from the Alpha hive honey super and the Back Yard hive honey super. The honey harvest was 35 pounds. Not bad really.

The now empty frames are sitting in the back yard being cleaned up by the bees and bugs.

11 September, 2011 - 2:30 pm

Its 92º, light winds, clear skies at the Back Yard bee hive.

I built a solar wax melter last week and finally started using it this weekend. Its a work in progress but it does a great job of melting a lot wax quickly.

Back Yard Bees

I took five capped honey super frames from the hive today. I replaced them with frames that have comb, so they should still be able to store food.

I removed all of the honey supers and starting looking through the top hive body for signs of the queen. On frame 8 I found fresh eggs on both sides, as well as larva and capped brood. So the queen is alive and doing very well. Frame 7 had 90% capped brood!!! I put back the frames and put the hive back together.

The hive temperament was very good. Only a few bees during the whole inspection bothered me.


4pm, Bee Yard in the country

The hive that I witnessed on the 10th of September was from the strongest of Gene's hives. I say that because today I looked through that hive and there were very few bees, maybe a third of what was there last week. The remaining bees were struggling with robber bees and ants. The other remaining hive swarmed as well. There hundreds and hundreds of robber bees going through both of those hives. My Dad and I moved the frames and hive bodies a couple of hundred feet away.

Swarm Hive
The honey super is slowly being capped, but I don't think I will be able to harvest the honey. I will see if I can leave it there for the bees. While looking through the top hive body I found fresh eggs and the queen on frame 3. I carefully put things back together.

I didn't have a chance to check on Alpha and Beta hives, I will do that tomorrow.

10 September, 2010 - 10 am

It was 85º clear skies and breezy at the Bee Yard.

I was checking on the two recently relocated hives today. There were alot of ants attacking the hives so I put down some insecticide.

I witnessed a large swarm settling around the whole bee yard. The bees ended up on a tree about 50' away from the hives. I won't know which hive swarmed until tomorrow, but that swarm was huge.

7 September, 2010 - 10 am

Its was 85º, clear skies and lightly breezy at the Bee Yard.

Moved Gene's four hives on Sunday of this week, to the bee yard in the country.

Today I found that two hives absconded. The two remaining hives were busy defending their hives from ants.

I did discover that one of the hives that left, settled on to a branch of a pecan tree about 40' up.

I didn't have a ladder or any safe way to retrieve that swarm. I did put an empty hive body with frames of foundation just below the branch.

I started feeding the two remaining hives today. One hive has a quart jar of 1:1 sugar water and the other hive has a gallon feeder bucket.

I also put down insecticide around the two hives to deal with the ant problem.

4 September, 2010 - 11 am

It was 85º at the Bee yard, clear skies and no wind.

Swarm Hive
The bees are busy capping the frames in the honey super. I am thinking of leaving this super on the hive for the bees to carry them through the winter. I removed the # 3 frame and found eggs, larva, capped brood and the queen! I put that frame back in and closed up the hive. The overall attitude of the hive is good, the bees are very calm even when opening the hive and manipulating frames. I am considering requeening another hive with this species of queen.

Beta Hive
Although there was not much activity at the hive entrance there were a considerable number of bees in the hive. Top hive body, I looked at frames 2,3 and 4 and found plenty of eggs, larva and capped brood. The hive attitude is also good. The bees are not easily agitated and generally left me alone.

Alpha Hive
There was quite a bit of foragers coming and going and about 15-20 bees on the landing area hanging out. I peaked in the honey supers and it looks like I have four frames fully capped and three that are 3/4 capped. While going through the frames the bees were very easily agitated. This concerned me because this could mean no queen or robbing from other hives or the genetics of the queen is bit more hostile than what I am used to. I removed the supers and looked through a couple of deep frames and found plenty of eggs, larva and capped brood. I also found the queen! So I am puzzled as to the "meanness" of the hive. This keeps up I will end up replacing that queen!!!

3 September, 2010 - 10 am

It was 83º, clear and sunny at the backyard bee hive.

Backyard Bees
I checked the hive today to look for signs of a queen. In the top hive body, frame 2 and 3 I found eggs that look to be from 1 to 3 days old. So it looks like the hive still has their queen. The demeanor of the hive is also good, the bees are still easy to work considering last weeks assault.

There are 4 frames of capped honey that can be harvested with the remaining frames being capped.

28 August, 2010 - 10 am

Partly cloudy, slight breeze and about 90º at the Back Yard bee hive.

Backyard Bees

There were a lot of bees out on the landing area this morning, I didn't know why until a little later after I finished looking through the hive.

The top honey super has two fully capped frames that can be harvested. The rest are being filled. There are also a lot of bees in this top honey super.

Bottom honey super has three fully capped frames that can be harvested and the rest are being capped.

Top hive body - the frames are full of bees, I removed the ninth frame and found eggs. larva and capped brood. This frame also had a lot of honey around the brood area and the other side was all honey filled cells, capped.

While going through the honey supers and hive bodies I noticed an unusual amount of bees in the air. They were not aggressive but there were a lot flying. So I put everything back together. About an hour later I looked out the window to check on the bees and saw a large gathering of bees at the back of the top honey super. I thought that maybe I had misplaced my queen. I suited up and checked things out. I found a large cluster of bees in a ball shape and thousands more all around on the top honey super. So picked up the ball of bees and moved bees around to see if there was a queen. And there was! I still thought she was my queen so I put her at the front hive entrance and immediately bees balled up on her! And it was then that I noticed the difference in color of the bees. My bees are a very light colored bee, the bees that were on the back of the hive are a darker color with dark bands. Its kind of hard to see these things some times because of the bee veil. But once I saw that color difference and the behavior I got the queen out of there. I put her in a queen cage and sealed it. I then put her in a five frame nuc and I began to try and collect the swarm bees. I am hoping the swarm bees will go to their queen and leave my hive alone. So far the swarm bees are still trying to get into the hive. It rained pretty hard so hopefully that will slow down what appears to be an assault.

Its 4 pm, I took a look in the nuc to see if any bees decided to take care of the queen. And there were 5 or so that were on the queen cage and they appeared to be feeding her. I noticed on the inside back of the nuc a small cluster of bees. I found another queen! So now I am really wondering what is going on here. I put that queen in a queen cage and now have both queens tucked into the middle area of the nuc. There are about 40 or so bees crawling around the queens. Both queens appear to be injured and may be rejected.

Now I need to really look through my hive to find the queen or at least see what damage was done by this assault.

27 August, 2010 - 10:30am

Alpha Hive
The bees have continued to fill the bottom honey super. Three frames are capped and ready for harvest. The rest of the super frames are being heavily worked. I didn't look through the hive bodies at this time.

Beta Hive
The hive is slowing building up numbers. I checked three frames in the top hive body and the bottom hive body. These frames had fresh eggs, larva and capped brood throughout.

Swarm Hive
I didn't look at the hive today. I cleaned up the grass around the hive and put down insecticide to deal with the ants. This was also done to the other two hives.

31 July, 2010 - 9 am

I extracted the honey this morning. There is a little over 30 pounds! I'll let it settle some and then bottle it. I will return the honey super to the Alpha hive today.

30 July, 2010 - 10:30 am

It was 95º at the Bee Yard, clear skies and light winds.

Swarm Hive
The bees are busy storing nectar in the honey super. They have stopped drawing comb on frames 10 and 1 but they cover frames 2 thru 9. Frames 5 and 6 are 1/3 capped, so it look like they are capping frames!

I looked at frames 1 thru 4 of the top hive body. Frame 1 is honey and pollen only. Frame 2 has some eggs/larva but its most of the cells have food. Frames 3 and 4 have eggs, larva and capped cells, most of these frames are brood frames, not much honey except at upper edges of frame. I stopped at frame 4 because I found so many eggs.

Beta Hive
The bees are not doing much in the honey super. There are not many bees in the super. When I removed the honey super a moth flew out of the hive body. Looked through all frames of the top hive body. Frame 1 had extensive wax moth damage, and there were bees all over it cleaning it and cutting out the damage. I went ahead and removed and replaced it. There were no other damaged, infested frames in the top hive body. Although I did not see a queen I did see eggs on 3 frames. The bottom hive body also had extensive wax moth damage on frame 1 and that was removed and replaced. I looked through all frames on the bottom hive and did not find any other pest damage. I saw some eggs scattered throughout the frames but not as much as I thought I should. There are also a lot less bees in the hive compared to what I noticed in the last inspection.

Alpha hive
The bottom honey super was ready to remove! The top honey super has some bees and the bees aren't storing food in that one. I did not inspect the bees I only removed the honey super

23 July, 2010 - 12 pm

Backyard Bees
The bees have been storing honey in both honey supers. The top honey super has a lot of bees in it and they are storing honey throughout the frames. The bottom honey super has four full frames of honey and they are starting to cap. The remaining frames are being drawn out and filled with honey. I looked through four frames of the top hive body. Frame one has more drawn comb and some eggs and honey. Frame two has more drawn comb and a lot of eggs on both sides. Frames three and four are filled with capped brood, and empty cells have eggs.

Alpha Hive
There were not any ants on the hive or the hive stand.
There are about 60 bees on the front porch cleaning and milling around. The top honey super had a few hundred bees. They are storing honey in there but not focused on this super. Bottom super has 6 capped frames. There are two frames that are full of honey and are being capped. The remaining two frames have some drawn comb and some stored honey.

Beta Hive
There were no ants on the hive or in the hive or on the hive stand. Top honey super had very few bees. Most of the bees are in the top hive body and bottom hive body. I started looking through the frames of the top hive body. I found the queen on frame three! and she was laying eggs!!!! I found eggs on frame one and two. After I found the queen I stopped removing frames. I did notice that two of the frames that were installed last week that were foundation, now have drawn comb! The hive is on the rebound.

Swarm Hive
I was unable to inspect the hive today. I spilled insecticide on my gloves while pouring it around the hive stand for this hive.

17 July, 2010 - 11 am

It was 83º at the Back Yard Bees. Partly sunny with showers.

Backyard Bees.
I removed the entrance reducer. I am hoping this will help with improved ventilation.

I looked inside the top honey super and there are hundreds of bees in there. The bottom honey super also has hundreds and hundreds of bees. They are focused on the three inner frames since they are full of honey.

I looked at a couple of frames in the top hive body and stopped as soon as I found eggs. Frame one has only one side being worked. They are building comb and storing food on this frame. Frame two is where I found one whole side filled with eggs. The other side is being used for food storage.

I put everything back together, I will check on them in a week.

16 July, 2010 - 11 am

It was 85º, partly sunny and slightly windy at the Bee yard.

Swarm hive
The bees are hard at work in the honey super. All frames have about one third comb drawn and there is curing nectar in the cells. I didn't do a hive inspection today, that will be done next Friday.

Beta Hive
The hive had ants crawling all over the top honey supers. I removed the supers and found thousands of ants all throughout the two honey supers. So I did what I could to clean them up, and set them aside. I looked through both hive bodies. I found capped honey and uncapped honey on six of ten frames. The remaining frames had pollen and some capped brood. Both hive bodies were like that, so I removed every other frame and replaced with foundation frames. I am hoping this will bring this hive back. I did find eggs and larva of various stages, but not many due to the lack of laying space. I am hoping that I don't have a laying worker. I put all of the hive bodies back together, and only put one honey super on the hive. There was just not enough bees to deal with the ants.

Alpha Hive
I did not get a chance to look at the hive today. I will look in on them this weekend.


Backyard Bees
I did not inspect them today. I did put a honey super on the hive. This particular super has drawn comb. At this time the backyard bees have two honey supers. They look like they need the room. I will inspect them this weekend.

14 July ,2010 - 1pm

The backyard bees have filled seven and a half frames in the top hive body. So today I put a honey super on the hive to give them some room. That honey super has five drawn frames, three of those are already full of honey that is uncapped. The remaining frames are foundation only. I am hoping this will encourage the girls to move up and store surplus honey!!!

The Beta hive has a lot less bees..., looks like they swarmed. So I removed a honey super and put it on the Backyard bees.

I did not do anything to any of the other hives at this time.

Swarm hive
Bees are slowly working on the honey super. Three frames are 80% drawn. The rest have patches of comb.

Alpha hive
They are hard at work on the bottom honey super. The two honey super frames that were foundation only and installed on July 7th now have 80% comb drawn out!!

Beta hive
They have a lot of ants crawling on the hive. There were 40 or so bees at the entrance dealing with the ants. Opened up the top honey. Not many bees, and they were chasing ants. Middle honey super had a few bees. Bottom super had a few bees. There were not many bees in the honey supers. Looks like there are a lot less bees than last week. I will not bother do an inspection until next week.

8 July, 2010 - 10 am

Today I returned the empty honey super to the Beta Hive.

Beta Hive
The bees did not bother me at all while I re-installed the honey super.

I did not inspect the other hives during this visit.

7 July, 2010 - 10 am

It was 85º, clear skies and no breeze at the Bee Yard.

Swarm hive
I did not do any inspections on this hive.

Alpha Hive
I looked through the bottom super and removed two frames that were completely capped. The remaining frames were about 70% capped!!! I put back two empty frames in the honey super. I did not do anything else to this hive.

Beta Hive
The bees have not moved up to the top honey super yet. The middle honey super has quite a few bees and they are busy storing food. There are no frames that can be removed from the top and middle honey supers. The bottom honey super had five capped frames so I removed them and replaced them with empty frames. The remaining frames are about 50% capped.

Today's harvest was 7 frames of honey. I will extract the honey this evening or tomorrow and return the frames to the bees.

The harvest yielded twenty pounds of honey. I'll let it settle for a day or so and bottle it.

3 July, 2010 - 2 pm

It was 86º at the Bee Yard, clear skies and windy.

Alpha Hive.
I only looked through the honey supers. Top honey super is untouched, no bees in it. Bottom honey super has a large number of bees. They are busy storing, curing honey and capping. Five frames are half way finished! The other five have some drawn comb, some curing honey.

Beta Hive
It looks like the bees swarmed! I looked through the three honey supers and found very few bees in them. The top honey super was untouched, no bees. The middle honey super had some bees and five frames with curing nectar. The bottom super has honey in six frames, five of those are completely capped. The remaining frames have honey scattered throughout the comb.

Although it looks like the bees swarmed I did not want to take apart the hive bodies. I will give them a week and see how they are doing.

Swarm hive
The bees are working in the top honey super. They are drawing comb and storing nectar. I didn't inspect the hive bodies this visit.

3 July, 2010 - 8 am

Backyard Bees
Replaced the feeder jar with a full jar.

2 July, 2010 - 10:30 am

It was 82º and partly cloudy at the Backyard Hive.

Backyard Bees
Replaced the feeder jar with a full one today. I opened up the hive to see what is going on with all of this sugar water consumption. In the top hive body, frames 4, 5, 6, and 7 have drawn comb! And there is curing nectar and sugar water. I also found areas that had eggs and pollen in these four frames. Frames 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, and 10 have a few bees roaming around and no signs of comb building. I did not remove the top hive body, I did not want to disturb the bees. Next visit I will do a more detailed inspection.

5 Pm
I removed a frame that was foundation only, and replaced it with a frame that has fully drawn comb and the top third has capped honey. The girls should clean it up and put it to use. I will see what progress they make on the next hive inspection.

30 June, 2010 - 4:30 pm

It was 86º, partly cloudy and slightly breezy at the Backyard Hive

Back Yard Bees
The feeder jar had a few ounces left so I replaced it with a full jar.

29 June, 2010 = 3 pm

81º, cloudy and no breeze at the Backyard Bee Hive

Backyard Bees
I noticed that the feeder jar was empty! It seems the girls are in some sort of feeding frenzy! Their feeding pattern has gone from a jar every two to three days, then to every other day and now a jar every day.

28 June, 2010 - 8:45 am

Backyard Bee hive

The feeder jar was empty, replaced with a full jar today.

27 June, 2010 - 2 pm

93º Clear skies and no breeze at the bee yard.

Swarm Hive
I only opened up the honey super. There are four frames with various areas of drawn comb and curing nectar. Finally the girls have moved up into the honey super.

Alpha Hive
This hive has two supers. I only looked through the supers and not the hive bodies. Top super is untouched and there are no bees in it. Bottom super has bees everywhere and three frames full of curing nectar and the rest of the frames are a work in progress.

Beta Hive
This hive has three honey supers. I only looked through honey supers, no hive bodies were checked during this visit. Top honey super is untouched, a few bees scattered throughout frames. Middle super is being worked heavily, the bees are filling all frames with nectar. Bottom honey super, all frames are full of honey, five frames are fully capped the remaining frames are being capped.

26 June, 2010 - 7:30 am

Its 76º at the Backyard Bee hive, no wind and clear skies.

Backyard Bees
The feeder jar was empty, replaced it with a full jar today. There are a lot of bees at the hive entrance and landing area this morning. Could be typical, but I don't usually check.

June 25, 2010 - 8:30 am

It was 82º at the backyard bee hive.

Backyard Bees
The bees are busy today. There was a lot of activity at the entrance, ten or so bees wandering around the landing board and ten or so in the entrance hanging out.

Opened up the top hive and found a hundred or so bees clustered around the feeder jar area. In the bottom middle three frames of the top hive there is comb being drawn! When I removed the top hive body, the comb that connected the two hive bodies was damaged.

The bottom hive body is looking good. Frames 10 and one now have bees wandering on them with some small areas of comb being drawn.

Frame 9 has a quarter of one side with comb and it contains maturing eggs as well as curing honey.

Frame 8 continues to be drawn out and the eggs/larva and capped brood are maturing.

On all of the frames that have comb, there are eggs that are at least a day old. So the queen is there and working hard.

Most of the frames have new bees hatching!. The bees are storing a lot of pollen on the frames.

Overall the hive is doing quite well.

24 June, 2010 - 8 am

It was 82º, clear skies and no breeze at the backyard bee hive.

Backyard bees
The feeder jar was empty so I replaced it with a full jar.

There is a lot of entrance activity today. There are about twenty or so bees hanging out on the porch!

20 June, 2010 - 2 pm

It was 94º and slightly breezy at the bee yard.

Swarm Hive
Today I removed the queen excluder that I placed on the bottom most hive body when I first hived this colony. There is now plenty of ventilation for the girls.


On my way home from the bee yard I saw a series of rain storms headed to town. By the time I arrived at home the weather had moved on. Well I decided to take a look at the bees in the back yard and saw that there were hundreds of bees clogging the entrance to get in! It looks like the bees were trying to get into the hive during the rainy weather. I took a few pictures. I am hoping its not the start of a swarm.

18 June, 2010 - 10 am

It was 90º, clear skies and no breeze at the back yard hive.

Backyard bees
Opened up the hive body and found 7 frames that are being drawn out. I looked at frames 10 and 9 and found some comb being drawn out and it is being used for honey and pollen storage. Frames 8 through 3 have comb drawn out at various stages and are covered with bees tending the eggs/larva and food. Frames 2 and 1 have comb being drawn out in small areas. Although I didn't find the queen I did find eggs and there were quite a few new bees to be seen. I added a second hive body today. I replaced the feeder jar with a fresh jar. The hive looks like its doing very well.

It was 94º at the Bee yard, partly cloudy and slightly breezy.

Swarm Hive
I noticed that on the outside of the hive there were a few ants. I removed the top cover and there numerous ants crawling about. There also many ants inside the one and only honey super. The bees were busy trying to deal with the ants. I buttoned up the hive and used a watering can to put down some insecticide to kill the ants. Because there were so many ants and the bees were in such a frenzy dealing with the ants I did not do a proper inspection this visit.


Alpha Hive
I opened the hive and found that the bees have finally started drawing comb in the inner most honey super! The top honey super is untouched but I left in place because it looks like they need the space. I did not do an inspection of the hive bodies at this time.

Entrance activity was very busy, there were about 50 or so bees on the landing area.


Beta Hive
This hive has 3 honey supers. The top honey super is untouched. The middle super is the one that was recently harvested and the bees have started to store honey in it. The bottom super, the bees are busy storing honey and are capping comb. The bees are very busy working on this super.

At the entrance there are a 100 or so bees hanging out, cleaning and such.

12 June, 2010 - 9 am

Today the honey was harvested from the honey super removed from the Beta hive. The total weight was 30 pounds! The harvested honey is settling and after that is done it will be bottled.

11 June, 2010 - 10:30 am & 2 pm

10:30 am
Its 88º at the backyard hive, clear skies and no wind.

Backyard bees
Removed the hive top feeder and installed a migratory cover with a hole so that a quart feeder jar can be used. Installed a full jar today. Didn't inspect the hive.

2 pm
It was 95º at the Bee yard, clear skies and no breeeeze.

Swarm Hive
The bees were very busy at the hive entrance and there were about twenty or so bees on the porch fanning.

Removed the top cover and then the inner cover. The bees completely covered the underside of the inner cover. It could be they were cooling the hive..? In the top hive body they have six frames drawn. I didn't find the queen but I did find eggs. I stopped the inspection at this point and put everything back together and I added a honey super. This honey super has plasticell as the foundation and it is wax coated. I melted some cappings wax I had and brushed it on all ten frames to see if that will encourage the bees to move up and build comb. The overall attitude of the hive was very calm. I did not need to use the smoker while doing the hive inspection.

I went ahead and removed the entrance reducer. This should help with ventilation during all of this hot weather .

Beta Hive
There is quite a bit of entrance activity! There are a hundred or so bees hanging out on the porch!

I opened up the hive to check on the honey supers. The top super is untouched, it is a honey super that does not have any drawn foundation. The middle honey super has a few thousand bees scattered throughout the frames and it is being filled with nectar. This honey super does have drawn foundation. The bottom honey super was filled with frames of capped honey! I decided to remove the super and harvest the honey. So as of now the Beta hive only has two honey supers. Once I extract the honey I will put that honey super on the Beta hive.

Alpha Hive
The bees are very busy at the entrance area. I removed the top cover to check the honey super. So far they are not moving up into the honey super. I put everything back in place for this hive.

-----------------------------------

First honey harvest of the year!

The frames are medium honey super frames, but they are
temporarily sitting in a deep brood box...



Heres a closer look of the bees handiwork

June 10, 2010 - 8:00 am

It was 74º, clear skies and no breeze at the backyard hive.

Backyard Bees
I opened up the hive top feeder and found that the bees consumed about 2 gallons of the sugar water feed. Tomorrow I will mix up a fresh batch.

I looked at frame 8 and found that the bees have covered 1/4 of the frame and the queen has already put eggs in most of that space and the bees filled the remaining cells with nectar!. I looked at frame 7 and one side of the frame is partially drawn and had eggs and nectar and pollen. It looks like 6 and a half frames are drawn. I'll give them another week and then put another hive body on and that should help them.

June 6, 2010 - 10:00 am

It was 80º, partly sunny at the bee yard.

Swarm Hive
Lot of activity at entrance of hive. The bees are very active. Opened up the hive and the bees covered the inner cover. There are 5 frames drawn with bees covering them. I checkerboarded two frames of foundation with brood frames in the top hive body. I'll see how they do with that next week and if things look good I'll add a honey super. The cordovan bees are pretty much everywhere now in this hive. While looking through the top hive body frames I found eggs,larva and capped brood. I didn't look for anything else at that point so I put the hive back together and moved on the the other hives. The bees didn't need to be smoked today. They were very calm throughout my entire visit.

Beta Hive
Hundred or so bees on the porch with many bees coming and going. I opened up the hive to look through the honey supers. There are maybe a hundred or so bees in the top honey super. That one is only foundation. The next super down has drawn comb and there are a few thousand in that one and it looks and feels like they are storing more nectar. The bottom most honey super is very heavy and has about 5 frames of that are capped! I removed the queen excluder in the hopes that it will allow more freedom of movement. The bees were agitated today! Several of them fly right at me out of the honey supers and began to sting my suit! At the entrance to the hive the bees didn't pay any attention to me at all! So I'm not certain why the other bees were so agitated.

Alpha Hive
There was so much more entrance activity to this hive than I have seen in a long time. They were more bees coming and going than in the Beta hive! I removed the honey super and found that the bees just aren't moving up there! I put everything back together.

I cut the grass around the hive stand. That grass sure is healthy around the hives.

June 4, 2010 - 1:30 pm

It was 88º, cloudy and no breeze at the backyard hive.

Backyard Bees
Today was the day for the second inspection. The hive top feeder was just about empty. While inspecting the feeder I found numerous hive beetle larva!. I removed that feeder and replaced it with a clean feeder. Although I found larva in the hive top feeder I did not see any beetles in the hive, but they are there somewhere. I will be spraying the area under and around the hive stand to deal with the beetles and ants later today.

I removed the #2 frame and it had one side drawn out and filled with pollen and curing sugar/nectar. The other side was about half drawn out, and there were eggs. The #1 frame which is against the wall was untouched. The #3 frame was drawn out on both sides, there were eggs,larva and capped brood! Frames 4,5,6 were the same as 3 but with more capped brood. The bees are storing plenty of sugar/nectar and pollen throughout the frames. The bees cover 5 frames at this time. There are many many bees producing wax. There is so much wax being made that it is easily visible on the ground under the screened bottom board. So at this point, it has taken the bees two weeks to draw out five frames.

31 May, 2010 - 3 pm

It was about 83º and party sunny and no breeze at the bee yard.

Swarm Hive
Opened it up and looked at the top hive body to see how the bees are filling out the frames. Looks like they have started drawing comb on the outer two frames. I removed one for a quick inspection and found the queen. I also found eggs and larva, so I put that back in and closed the hive.

Alpha Hive
Opened up the top honey super. No bees are working in it. Removed it and started looking through the top hive body. I decided to remove a frame that was the second one in from the wall. That was a mistake. The lower comb had been drawn out and attached to the next frame. Removing it caused about half of the capped honey on that frame to spill out. Cleaned up the honey mess as best as I could. I didn't see the queen on that frame or the ones next to it. Replaced the damaged frame with another frame that was only foundation and put the hive back together.

Beta Hive
Opened up the top honey super and didn't find many bees in it. Removed it to look at the second honey super and found hundreds of bees in it and about 4 frames with curing honey. Removed the second honey super. The third honey super has all frames filled with honey and the middle 4 frames are being capped. Didn't go any further into hive, put all supers back in place and closed the hive.

28 May, 2010 - 12 pm

It was 91º with a slight breeze and partly sunny at the backyard bee hive.

Back yard hive
Today marked the seventh day since the installation of the package bees. This was the first inspection of this hive.

The queen has been released. I did not find the queen but I did find eggs on two of the frames I inspected. There is pollen throughout the two frames and there is curing nectar as well. This hive looks like its off to a good start.

There are 3 and a half frames drawn at this time. The hive top feeder is full and the mixture looks good. I will do another inspection in one week.

26 May, 2010 - 8:00 am

It was 68º at the back yard hive, clear skies and no breeze.

Back yard hive
Refilled the hive top feeder. Noticed a cluster of bees on the top side of the screened bottom board(inside the hive). Have to wait until Friday to see what that means.

It was 86º at the back yard hive, 4 pm.

I was able to see that the bees are bringing in pollen. So they must have drawn enough comb to start storing food!

25 May, 2010 - 3:30 pm

Its about 84º and slightly breezy at the back yard hive.

Back yard hive
I checked the hive top feeder today. It holds about 3 gallons of sugar water. The bees have consumed just about all of the food. Tomorrow I will mix some sugar water and refill the feeder.

There is a lot of activity at the front of the hive and there are numerous bees flying around in front of the hive. I couldn't tell if the bees were bringing in pollen, I didn't want to disturb them.

23 May, 2010 - 1 pm

Its partly cloudy, slight breeze and 90º at the Back yard hive.

Back Yard bees
Since installation of the package on Friday, there have been about forty or so bees on the bottom outside of the screened bottom board. Hopefully these bees will move inside the hive.

22 May, 2010 - 2 pm

It was partly cloudy, light wind and about 90º at the Bee yard and at the Backyard Hive.

Swarm Hive
The bees are very busy. There were about 10 or so bees hanging out on the porch at any time, and quite a few flying in and out of the hive.

Here is a clip of the swarm hive...



The bees still did not move up into the top hive body. So I moved four frames from the bottom box that had food and brood of various stages and put it in the top hive body in the middle. This should get the bees to move up there. While I was looking through the frames I did find eggs, but did not see the queen.

I forgot to bring my smoker today and I really didn't need it for this hive. I was able to open the hive and move frames and pretty much do whatever I wanted without any bees getting upset.

I noticed that there many many more cordovan workers now. They really stand out in color compared to the original bees.

Alpha Hive
There was alot of entrance activity. There was about 10 or so bees hanging out on the porch cleaning and guarding. There were also alot of bees coming and going.

Clip of the Alpha hive...


I opened up the hive to peek into the honey super. There were a few hundred bees throughout the honey super but it was hard to tell if they had started drawing comb. I removed the honey super and started looking through the frames of the top hive body. The "wall" frame has the beginnings of comb with eggs already in them! The wall side of the frame is untouched. The third frame in had the queen on it. I found eggs all over both sides of that frame. At that point I stopped the inspection and put that frame in carefully and buttoned up the hive. This hive is doing very well.

This hive's temperament was very good today. None of the bees were upset or flying at me during this inspection.

Beta Hive
This hive has about a hundred or so bees at the landing board at any time. The entrance activity is amazing, there are so many bees coming and going. I opened up the top honey super and found about a hundred or so bees scattered throughout this honey super. The next honey super down has several hundred bees throughout it. The bottom honey super has hundreds and hundreds of bees and there is curing honey in five of the frames. I stopped at this point and put everything back in place. This hive's temperament was also amazing today. With all that movement and disruption, none of the bees were bothered with me.

Here is a clip of the Beta hive...

21 May, 2010 - 9 am

Its about 80º and cloudy with light winds.


The Backyard Bees

I have been wanting to put a hive in the back yard for some time. Earlier this year I decided to order a three pound package of bees with a queen to do just that.

Today I received my package bees from Gardener's Apiaries! The girls looked good considering their three day trip. The bees were clustered around the queen cage and feeder can. I used a spray bottle and sprayed the bees lightly with water as soon as I picked them up at the UPS center. On the bottom of the package there were a hundred or so dead bees.

It took about twenty minutes to install the bees into their hive. This hive has frames that use wax coated plasticell for foundation. And none of the frames are drawn out...yet.

I installed a hive top feeder for this hive. This should work much better than one quart feeder jars. I just have to watch out for ants!

I took a few pictures and a couple of movies, I'll post later.

I need to come up with a name for this hive.

I didn't make it out to the Bee Yard at my parent's house, I'll do that tomorrow.


Heres a photo of the bees just before I put them in the hive


The hive stand area

These clips were made just after the bees were put into the hive

15 May, 2010 - 4 pm

It was 85º and partly cloudy, light wind at the bee yard.

Swarm Hive
Removed the honey super that was installed and replaced it with a hive body and frames with wax foundation. For some reason the girls just don't seem interested in moving upwards into the next hive body, I'll see how things go this time. I did not pull any frames, this visit was only to install the second hive body.

Alpha Hive
There was alot of activity around the entrance. There are bees cleaning the landing board area and around the entrance are. I checked in the honey super and found that there were not many bees in it. Looks like they more focused on the second hive body.
I did not do a hive inspection during this visit.

Beta Hive
There were so many bees hanging out at the landing board! It looks like most of them were cleaning. There were quite a few doing orientation flights and many bees bringing in food. I checked the top honey super and found that there were hundreds in it. Some were drawing comb, most looked like they were storing food and cleaning. The hive had two honey supers installed, but it looked like they need more room so I added a third honey super. I did not do a hive inspection during this visit.

7 May, 2010 - 9 am

It was partly cloudy, no wind and about 80º.

Swarm Hive
No signs of ants, activity at entrance of hive looks normal. There were bees coming and going and a few guard bees. Didn't open them up, I'll see if I need to do that this weekend.

Alpha Hive
Checked the honey super and no bees were there. Removed it and looked through the top hive body. All of the frames are being worked by the bees, about 6 frames are drawn out completely and have food, eggs/larva/capped brood. Four frames are partially drawn out, some have pollen and curing nectar. The bottom hive body has 6 frames drawn out and have eggs/larva/capped brood, curing nectar and pollen. Four frames are untouched, the bees just didn't do anything with them. Swapped the top hive bottom to the bottom position and the bottom to the top position. The hive body that had four untouched frames, they were checkerboarded with the other six. Hopefully this encourage the bees to draw out the frames. I did put a honey super on this hive to give them some room.

Beta Hive
I checked on the top honey super and there bees in there doing what they do. The bottom honey super also had a lot of bees in it and the girls are starting to store honey!

I did not look in either hive body. I am concerned that they will swarm. There is so much activity at the hive entrance. There are at any time about twenty bees hanging out front fanning, cleaning and greeting.

5 May, 2010 - 10 am

80º and no wind, clear skies.

Swarm Hive
There were ants all over the exterior of the hive and hive stand!

Deployed some ant killer, I'll see what that does.

Didn't open the hive, removed the feeder jar - the girls aren't consuming any of it.

This weekend a more detailed inspection should be done.

Split Hive
Some time in the last 10 days it crashed. There were only 5-6 bees, no queen. There was extensive wax moth infestation and damage to 5 of the frames. Took apart the hive and will clean up the woodenware as soon as possible.

Alpha & Beta Hives
There was a lot of entrance activity, many bees were flying up and down in front of both hives. Didn't do any inspections. Put down some ant killer just because.

Started working on a solar wax melter...

May 2, 2010 - 11 am

It was about 86º, partly cloudy and very windy at the bee yard.

Alpha Hive
Looked through a few frames and found that the bees are storing alot of honey in the deeps. I found plenty of eggs on just the frames I looked at so its looking better in this hive. I added a medium super to give the girls some room.

Beta Hive
There were alot of bees hanging out on the entrance area cleaning up and greeting bees. I looked through the honey super and there are more bees in it but no storage is going on. I looked through a few frames in the top deep and found plenty of eggs, larva and capped brood. I also found that there is a lot of honey being stored. So I added another honey super.

Swarm Hive
The girls just don't seem interested in the top deep. There also are not interested in the feeder jar. I looked through some frames and did find eggs and larva so that seems good. They are also storing alot of honey. I added a honey super in place of a hive body to see what the girls do.

Split Hive
I didn't bother the girls. I did check to make sure there were no obvious pests/issues on the outside and around the hive body. I will open them up next weekend and see how they are doing.

May 1, 2010 - 4 pm

It was about 83º. windy and overcast at the bee yard, it looked like it was going to rain.

Swarm Hive
I checked the feeder jar and it was still full, the bees are not feeding from it very much! So I peaked inside the top hive body. The bees have not moved up for some reason. The lower hive body looks very packed with bees and comb. I think I will put a honey super on it to give them some room and see what they do.

I replaced the feeder jar with a new one.


Split Hive
I found that they have not consumed very much, but then there aren't too many bees in the hive at this time. I replaced the jar with a fresh one. I didn't inspect this hive.

Beta Hive
I didn't open this hive. There was a tremendous amount of activity on the landing area of the hive. There were quite a few bees flying up and down and around the front of the hive, so that looked like "happy flights".

Alpha Hive
I didn't get into this hive either. The entrance activity is good but there are only about 10 or so bees at any time coming and going.

Hopefully the weather will be better so that I can look into the hives that I need to this weekend.

25 April, 2010 - 2 pm

It was clear and windy and 85º at the bee yard.

Split Hive
Opened it up and found that there were a hundred or so bees. Didn't inspect or move any frames. I will do that next weekend. I removed the hive top feeder, seems the girls didn't use it much at all. I installed a migratory cover with a hole and put on a full feeder jar.

Swarm Hive
There were a lot of bees coming and going! I thought at first that the hive was being robbed, so I watched for a few minutes. Didn't see anything unusual so I opened up the hive. The bees haven't really moved up into the second hive body. There are bees scattered amongst the frames. Since I didn't have ten frames to put in the second hive body I put in the 7 that I had. When my hive bodies arrive I will replace it. I looked through a couple of frames and found eggs so I put everything back together. I also installed a fresh feeder jar today.

Photos of the Swarm hive

Alpha Hive
Entrance was busy, many bees bringing in pollen.
I opened it up and looked through a few frames. I found eggs, larva and capped brood. So I buttoned it up.

Beta Hive
There a few hundred bees flying around the front entrance area, looked like "happy flights". Looks like whole lot of bees hatched recently. I am hoping this hive doesn't swarm again this year. I checked the honey super and there are more bees in there this visit but none are storing any honey in it. I removed it and looked through a few frames in the top hive body. Found the queen on the fourth frame I was looking at and put it back. I found alot of eggs, larva and capped brood on the 3 frames I looked at. I need to do a more thorough inspection and see if the hive is storing too much honey in the hive bodies, I'll do that next weekend.

Photos and a movie of Beta hive

I put together a hive stand in my back yard. In May I will be getting a 3 pound package of bees and will put them in the back yard.

21 April, 2010 - 2 pm

It was 83º and breezy at the bee yard.

Swarm Hive
Looks like they have accepted the queen! There are eggs on 4 frames! The other 6 frames are being filled with nectar and pollen and or are under construction.

I am still feeding this hive. They have only consumed a 1/3 of the sugar water since Saturday, so it looks like they are bringing in plenty of food.

Since the bees have filled out the frames in the hive body I added another hive body.
The new hive body has frames with foundation. So the bees should get busy with building comb.

Beta Hive
Didn't bother the hive today. I'll check on them this Saturday.

Alpha Hive
I looked through this hive and found plenty of eggs/larva/capped brood. There is also quite a bit of capped honey and pollen. This hive is looking better with every visit. I will check on them in a week or so.

Split Hive
About 90% of the bees left the hive!!! But the queen and about 50 or so bees were left behind. The queen has been busy laying eggs throughout the 10 frames, theres just not enough workers/house bees to take care of things.

So I took one frame with eggs/larva/capped brood and bees from the Alpha hive and 2 frames of eggs/larva/capped brood and bees from the Swarm hive and put those in the Split hive. Hopefully this will get this hive going.

18 April, 2010 - 2 pm

It was about 85º and breezy at the bee yard.

I only did a short inspection of the Beta Hive.

I removed the honey super, and opened up the top hive body. I started looking through the frames starting from the north side of the hive body. The outer most frame was full of honey, one side was completely capped the other was about a third capped. The next frame had some drone brood and worker brood. And it was in various stages of development, some had eggs, larva and some were capped. The next frame was a brood frame with both sides filled with eggs/larva and capped brood, same for the next frame. I only looked at four frames and it looked good. I did find a capped supercedure cell. I removed it, because I found a large number of fresh eggs. So it seems the girls are unhappy with this three/four week old queen. To me the new queen is doing great. Next week there should be a few thousand new bees hatching.

Wednesday I will look through the Beta hive a little more.

Beta Hive Images

17 April, 2010 - 2:30 pm

It was about 85º and clear skies at the bee yard.

Swarm Hive
Replaced the empty feeder jar with a full one. There are a lot of bees coming and going. Quite a few of the bees are bringing in pollen.

Still need to give the hive more time with the queen(if shes still there).

Alpha & Beta hives
Didn't open the Alpha hive. I will take a look inside on 21 April, Wednesday and see whats happening. There are a few bees coming and going in the Alpha hive.

The bees from the Beta hive still haven't done anything with the honey super. They are busy coming and going. I am considering opening it tomorrow for a quick inspection.

Split hive
There are a lot of ants on the back of the hive going in and out of the top hive feeder box. Put down some insecticide with a watering can to deal with the ants. I'll take a look inside on 21 April.

14 April, 2010 - 9 am

74º, slightly breezy and sunny at the bee yard.

Swarm Hive
The queen was released and the cage was completely empty and clean.

The bees are busy capping honey, and building new comb. Hopefully the queen is alive and busy.

Split Hive
The queen was not released. The bees consumed about half of the queen candy then stopped. The bees were clinging to the area of the cage where the queen was located and appeared to be feeding her. I didn't see any bees biting the cage. I went ahead and removed the cork from the other end of the cage.

I will leave these hives alone till wednesday of next week, and then see if the queens have laid eggs. I will continue feeding the hives.

Alpha & Beta Hives
I did not disturb these hives. I just watched and observed the bees bringing in pollen. I will look in on them Friday or Saturday.

11 April, 2010 - 2 pm

It was about 80º and slightly breezy, clear skies at the bee yard.

Yesterday I forgot to put a feeder on the "split" hive. Today I borrowed a hive top feeder from a friend of mine and installed it and filled it up. It holds about 36 cups of sugar water.

Otherwise I didn't look through any of the other hives. I will put a telescoping cover and inner cover on the Beta hive as soon as I can.

10 April, 2010 - 11:30am

It was about 65º, clear skies and no wind at the bee yard.

Today the queens were deployed.

The swarm hive was checked through one more time for a queen and none was found. So a queen was setup in the middle of the hive. The feeder jar was full, buttoned up the hive. On Wednesday of next week I'll check to see if the queen was successfully released.

Alpha Hive

Used a few frames from the hive to make a split. The remaining new queen was installed in the split and that one will also need to be checked on Wednesday of next week.

Beta Hive

Checked the honey super and some of the bees are milling around in it but none are storing nectar. I do not want to disturb the hive until next weekend.

9 April, 2010 - 9:15 am

The queens arrived today. They are Cordovan Queens. I put a little water on the cage screens and put them in a dark area.

6 April, 2010 - 9:30am

It was about 75º, clear skies and no breeze.

Swarm Hive
The feeder jar has just over a cup of sugar water left.  That jar has been on there for two days now.  Seems the girls have found a better food source.  I am still treating the swarm hive as if its a package installation.  The bees cover 5 frames.  The hive frames are currently checkerboarded, and the bees are busy drawing comb on the foundation frames and busy repairing cleaning up the frames with comb.  So far I have not found a queen, eggs or larva.  The bees hive a very mild temperament as if there is a queen in the hive.  Every frame they occupy and are working on is filled with sugar/water, nectar and pollen.

Alpha & Beta Hives

I only observed the bees to check what food types they are bringing in, and I saw a lot of pollen inbound.  The bees are very busy coming and going and none of them bothered with me.

Here are some photos of the Swarm hive;

4 April, 2010 - 3:30pm

It was 84º, clear skies and no breeze at the bee yard.

Swarm Hive
My Dad and I looked through the hive just out of curiosity.  I did not see any eggs/larva or a queen, yet the bees, which cover four frames have remained and are VERY busy storing sugar water and pollen.

Alpha Hive
I thought I would look through the top box frames for swarm/supercedure cells and remove them in preparation for the new queen.  I found the the top middle frames are being used to store nectar and pollen.  The bees are also drawing comb in the top box frames.  I did not see any eggs/larva or a queen.

I removed the top hive body and started going through the lower hive body frames. The frames in the middle of the hive body had eggs!  While looking for more eggs and finding them, I found a queen!  Its good to see that the hive seems to have successfully requeened itself.


What I find interesting is that Alpha and Beta hives requeened themselves and the queens starting laying eggs within days of each other.

I still have two queens on the way.  So I am thinking of putting one queen in the swarm hive.  The other queen will be used for a split made from the Alpha hive.  Alpha hive should have plenty of frames of eggs/larva by the end of the week.

3 April, 2010 - 12 pm

It was 80º and partly cloudy, slightly breezy at the bee yard.

Today was the day to open up the swarm hive.  A friend of mine and fellow beekeeper, Gene went with me.   We found that the bees cover four frames.  Also found that the bees have been storing the sugar water mix and a lot of pollen.  Searched all frames and did not see any eggs or a queen.  Buttoned everything up and went over to check on the Alpha & Beta hives.

Alpha Hive

On the 31st of March I put a deep hive body that only had foundation.  Since that time the bees moved up from the bottom hive body and started drawing comb in the upper hive body in the middle 3 frames.  Looked for eggs,larva and didn't see any.

The bees are VERY busy bringing in nectar and pollen.  I checkerboarded the top hive body, to keep the bees busy and prep for the queen later this week.


Beta Hive

I was looking through the top hive body and found curing nectar and pollen everywhere.  And then I found a frame with eggs!!!  I believe its from a queen because its right smack in the middle bottom of the cells.  I found eggs on three frames!!!  So I put everything back in place and put a honey super on.

It looks like the hive has a queen!!


Since I have two queens arriving later this week I will now put one in the Alpha Hive and one in the Swarm Hive.  It that works out I will have three hives at the bee yard.  I am thinking of naming the swarm hive the Delta Hive.

2 April, 2010 - 10:30 am

It was around 60º this morning at the bee yard.

The swarm hive's feeder jar was empty so I replaced it with a full jar.  Tomorrow I will take a look in the swarm hive for signs of a queen.

I didn't inspect the Alpha & Beta Hives.  I really don't want to bother the girls too much since they don't have queens.

31 March, 2010 - 10 am

It was about 75º, clear skies and no wind at the bee yard.

I checked the feeder jar of the hived swarm and it was empty. Replaced with a full jar. Watched the bees entering/exiting and saw bees bringing in pollen. Maybe the queen is there!

29 March, 2010 - 10:30am

It was about 50º at the bee yard. Overcast and windy.

Checked on the swarm hive today. The feeder jar was down to 1 cup so I replaced it with a full jar.

Because of the cooler temps none of the hives were very active.

28 March, 2010 - 11:30 am

It was about 70º and partly cloudy.

I didn't inspect Alpha or Beta hives today, I'll check in on Tuesday or Wednesday for signs of a queen.

The frames I removed from the Beta hive are being cleaned up nicely by the bees.

I checked on the hived swarm today. There is a lot of in/out activity of the hive. I didn't open the hive but I did look underneath through the screened bottom board and there are not so many bees there today. It looks like the queen left. But there there are alot of bees inside at the top of the hive feeding from the feeder jar. They consumed 1 quart of sugar water since yesterday!! I put a replacement on and will check again tomorrow morning.

27 March, 2010 - 1pm

It was about 75º and breezy.

I thought I would check the Alpha Hive to see if the queen cells hatched. So far they have not. The bees are very busy storing honey and pollen. There are alot less bees so it seems they swarmed again.

The Beta Hive still has alot of bees. Couldn't find any queen, eggs or larva. But the supercedure cells look good, hopefully they will hatch soon. I did a bit of checker boarding in the Beta hive to reduce congestion. The frames I removed had curing honey and pollen. I put those about 50' from the hive so they get cleaned out.

I have done the checkerboarding to the Alpha and Beta Hive. I noticed that the Alpha Hive has already started to draw comb on one of the foundation frames.

While I was gathering up some pine straw for the smoker my Dad spotted a swarm of bees clinging to a fallen branch that was near the bee yard.

We gathered up the necessary equipement to hive the swarm. This time though, we used a queen excluder in between the bottom board and the hive body to keep the queen. Four frames of comb with pollen and uncured honey were installed, the rest of the frames are foundation. A jar of sugar water was installed and I will check on them tomorrow.

28 March , 2010 - 10 am

I received my confirmation letter for shipment of 3 pounds of bees and queen from Gardner's Apiaries today.

I will be putting these bees in my back yard.

25 March, 2010 10 am

Went out to check on the swarm that I hived...and it was gone! So I cleaned up the equipment and put it away.

Its too soon and too cool to look in on the Alpha and Beta Hives today. I will check on them this weekend if the weather is better.

24 March, 2010 - 10 am

Checked on the bees today. Noticed a swarm settled on a small tree about 12 feet from my hives. I went ahead and looked through my hives for signs of queens, eggs. No luck. Both hives do seem to have less bees... so that swarm was from one of my hives.

After the hive inspections, I gathered up the swarm and put it in a hive body next to the tree the bees swarmed. The hive body had 3 frames of drawn comb and 7 frames of foundation. I put a bottle of sugar water on it and will check tomorrow and see if the hive stays.

20 March, 2010 - 1 pm

It was a clear day, slightly breezy and 74º.

Alpha Hive

The hive had thousands of bees on the front of the hive. I did a hive inspection and examined both hive bodies.

I did not find any eggs or young uncapped brood. All I found was capped brood. I could not find the queen. I did find 8 hatched queen swarm cells and 2 supercedure cells.

I did find that both hive bodies have curing honey and pollen everywhere.

The bees are so numerous that they were clinging to each other on the frames of both hive bodies. So on the top hive box I removed 5 frames that didn't have brood and put in frames with just foundation to give the bees something to do.

I will be ordering a queen this coming monday, if any are available.



Beta Hive

I did a quick inspection, but only looked through the top hive body. I found eggs, larva and capped brood, so this hive seems to have a queen!!! I did find that this hive also has honey and pollen stored everywhere. I did install a honey super to help with this, but I might have to remove some frames to reduce a potential congestion problem.

19 March, 2010 - 10 am

Clear skies, breezy and 70º at the bee yard.

As of the 16th I stopped feeding the bees sugar water, forgot to note that in previous posts. The bees didn't seem to be consuming as much.

I was just going to take a look at the outside of the hives today, no inspections were planned. Within a few minutes of my arrival, the Alpha Hive sent out thousands of bees in the air and they started to land and cluster on the front of the hive. It sure looked like the beginnings of a swarm. I was able to take photos and a couple of movies. I will post when possible.

After half an hour or so the bees dispersed and headed back into the hive and some went under the hive. So the swarming has begun.

The Beta Hive was very active today as well but they did not do anything like Alpha. They are a very strong hive too at this point and I have already put a super on to give them something to do.

Right now both hives have a super, maybe this will help them...I really need to read that chapter on swarming.

Pictures and movies of Alpha Hive...

This movie is moments before the swarm/swarm like behavior




The start of the swarm..?




Slow Motion Video of the swarming...




The bees are still going...




More Slo-Motion video...




Pictures of the Alpha Hive situation...