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.
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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
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