We have a mentor

A Queenright Hive

We had a chance to check on the hive this afternoon. THe hive looks good. Although we did not see the queen (not certain Karen and I know what we are looking for) we saw plenty of eggs, larve and brood. Everything looks very good. On Friday, the hive should start to increase in number as the new bees will start to emerge. Twenty-one days is the lenght of time that it takes for a egg to transform to larve to bee. Six of the eight brood frames, have strong activity - frames 7 and 8 are still inactive. From what I have read this is normal, as the queen works from the inside frame to the outside frames.

No activity on the frames in the honey supers, but this is normal for this stage of the hives development. I expect the comb honey kit to arrive this week. We scraped a small amount of wax from the sides of brood super.

We did clean the top feeder, as some mold had developed in the sugar water. We cleaned the feeder by spraying water on the inside and then refilled it with sugar water. The refill was water and sugar compared to the intial feeding of water and Karyo syrup. Last week I read that sugar is better than Karyo syrup (corn syrup).

The Mailman, Kathy B and two Rebecca's

I failed to mention in an earlier post, that when my sister was in town that her daughter Rebecca suited up and looked in the hive. After a series of email exchangesthis morning with Mr. B , I had decided that I wanted to go looking for the queen and see if the queen excluder was also excluding the other bees. However before I could go check- Mr. B's daughter inlaw (Karen's good friend Kathy) and Rebecca S. stopped by to view the bees. I was in the middle of a conference call and we couldnt get suited up, and they both had places to go so they could not wait for the call to end. When I did get a chance to check the bees, the mailman was at the house and he did come up and look at the bees. he thought they were great!

I did take the queen excluder off as there were only a handful of bees on the otherside of the excluder. The top frames were empty, and no bees where in the top feeder. I did notice that the bees have done some capping work. Still have not seen the queen. Since I have checked them twice in four days, I am going to wait until the new equipment from brushy mtn arrives before I suit up again. I am also going to contact Jim's neighbor (lady at the party) and ask her to stop by this weekend- it will be good to have an experienced beekeeper take a look at the hive. Hopefully she can help Karen and I find the queen.

weather 73 and overcast

Blue Angles and Bee

We went to the Charleston airshow over the weekend and saw the Blue Angles. Awsome airshow- we were on my parents sailboat anchored in the harbour. We anchored at show central and had the best seat in the house. Watching the "Hornets" fly, really made me wish once again that I had passed my physical and wasnt color blind- no need to waste anymore time on that, already spent 20 plus years on that. This was the first time Allison and Laura has seen either the BlueAngles or the Thunderbirds- they loved it. They love aviation and space- Allison wants to be a NASA flight engineer and Laura wants to be a Naval Avaitor so it was right up their alley. So waht does this have to do with bees? They bees are also skilled avaitors in their own right. Also a friend pointed out that I can auto notify people when I update a post so I wanted to create a post and give it a try.

Week One

After a week, the bees are looking good. The brood frames are getting built out in a nice manner. The edge frames (8,7, and 6) are still light - this is the side where the bees where inserted and the other side is where the queen was placed last Friday. If I dont see frames 6-8 get built soon, I will rotate the frames in an attempt to get brood on all frames. Although I looked, I could not find the queen. Laura also suited up, and helped karen and I. The bees are feeding well- pace of food consumption slowed after the intial days. I assume the bees where hungry from the trip , but between the feeders and the pollen they are eating well. There was a small amount of wax that we had to scrape from the side of the chamber. I was glad to see the wax build up- as it gave us the opportunity to scrape it and see the texture of beeswax. The wax was very sweet - as silly as it sounds tasted like honey.



We placed one honey super on, and also installed the queen excluder. We have a second honey super to install, but the intial wax comb had fallen off many frames. Since working in bee gloves is difficult, we will repair the frames and add the second super the next time we open the hive. Overall we are pleased with week one.



Weather - sunny and mid 70's. Overall good weather week.

Checking the Queen

We put the full moon suit on and checked the hive. It is amazing how much the ate in three days. The queen is no longer in the queen cage, she was succesfully released by the others. The frames that were directly above her cage, have a great wax foundation being built. I am still amazed at how loud the hive is. I did crush a bee, when I was replacing the top feeder.

Weekend One Continued

A few additional pictures of inserting the bees.

The First weekend

We picked up the bees on Friday, and got them installed into the hive. Listening to a box of bees was very interesting- they are very loud. Installing the bees was a non event , as it took longer to get suited up, light the smoker, etc than it did to shake them out of the box. Since we sprayed them, before opening the box they just fell into the hive in large quantiites. The queen was alos inserted- hopefully the workers, and the drones have accepted the queen. Throughout the weekend, we would watch the bee -very interesting. We will open the hive later today to check the food level, and see if the queen has been released from the cage.

Bee Day

McCoy's Farm Supply called, the bee will be ready for pickup today at 1:30.