Friday, June 18, 2010

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.

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