A light dusting of powdered sugar

Allison and I paid the hive a visit on Sunday afternoon. Since we were both in shorts, we wore the Homer Simpson suits. I will post Allison's picture later this week.

Overall the hive looks good. The lower brood super is built out nicely, only one empty frame. Frame 8, was covered in honey and the others were covered in egg and larve. At first I thought it was odd and that something was wrong, since they were storing honey in a brood frame, but Karen told me she had read this was normal and that they honey in that brood frame will be eaten by the bees in the winter. the upper brood super has decent activity in the middle frames. They are building out the comb. There is plenty of work to be done in the upper brood frame before it is ready for the queen.

We did give the hive a mite treatment, and will continue to do so on a regular basis. The mite treatment is a dusting with powdered sugar. I have read in the "Backyard Beekeeper" that dusting for mites in this manner, will eliminate 10% of the mite population - thus you do it often. Although the books say this is good for the bees; they did not like it. When we were dusting the bees you could tell they didnt like it, as the hive was a noisy as i have ever heard it. I dont claim to understand how placing powdered sugar on the bees gets ride of mites - maybe they eat the sugar and in turn eat the mites.

Since the weather has been rainy and overcast in recent days the bee's have eaten alot from the feeders. Refilled the front feeder (top feeder is put away for the summer). Weather when we opened the hive sunny and warm 80's.

This weekend we also purchased some comb honey and some whipped honey spread. I did not care for the whipped honey - had the taste and consistency of honey that had been placed in the icebox. The Comb honey is vusually interesting since the comb is in the jar.

On a none bee note - we watched a good program on Dateline NBC on the topic of Credit Card Fraud and Identity Theft. The portions on credit card fraud and IT security where interesting - this is what we do as a company- verify the security of payment networks.