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...