Tuesday July 26, 2011

All three hives are going strong.
Hive one has some comb to build in both honey supers so the yield from this hive may be low.
Hive two is still going great and they have made good progress on the comb building and they have brought in a lot of nectar.
We dug down into the bottom honey super just to check things out and I came across some bad comb just above the top brood super. There was a big hole in the wax in one of the frames, some sidewise comb on a few of the frames and a few drone eggs were deposited on the bottom of a few of the frames. I am not sure why the bees do this occasionally but when this happens it is sometimes hard to fit the frames into the extractor and if the wax breaks while spinning it’s a mess. I moved this box to the top of the hive and I will go in later this week and replace those frames with ones with better comb.
One of the frames with the weird comb had a pure wax foundation (no plastic) so this can be cut up and put in boxes for people who like honey in the comb. Or I can throw it the melter (along with the capping) at the end of the season and use it for canning or cooking.
Hive 3 weighed in at 250 Lbs! which is 34 lbs. of nectar/pollen in nine days! It looked healthy and they had produced a fair amount of wax and nectar in the new super from last week.

Sunday July 17, 2011

Ted and I went into the hives today to take inventory and to make a few changes. One thing that can be done to reduce a mite population is to install a screen bottom board. In theory, the mites can pass through the screen and then they can’t climb back into the hive. I am not sure how affective this is but, it’s minimally invasive and does not use any chemicals or drugs. There are several mite medications that can be applied but I can’t use them during the honey flow or else they can end up in the honey.
We dissembled each hive down to the hive stand and replaced all of the bottom boards with the screen version. These were purchased for about $10.00 each from Sidney General Store which sells bee keeping supplies. Who knew?
We also took out one empty medium honey super for each hive just in case they were ready for more storage room for this year’s crop.
Each honey super has nine frames but, Ted and I had disassembled three of the frames in each super and replaced the old dark comb with plastic foundation. This forces the bees to produce fresh comb which takes longer to fill and is more work for the bees, but is healthier for the hive in the long run. The old comb was thrown into the wax melter for candles and whatnot.
Hive 1 is still lagging some, but we put the second box on any way. This hive still has the queen excluder because the first box is not entirely full and I did not want the queen to pass through into the honey supers.
Hive 2 is going great so we put the fourth honey super on it. There is honey throughout the three boxes already installed but not all of it is capped.
Hive 3 is also strong but not as strong as hive 2. It weighed in at 206 lbs so it is up 14 lbs from last week. We put the empty super on it which added an additional 10 lbs for a total weight of 116 lbs.
Not all of the hives were actually ready for the extra supers that we installed but I took into consideration the fact that the whole field is covered with spotted Knapp weed that is just about to come into bloom.
Spotted Knapp weed is an invasive plant species that is considered a pest but it seems to produce good nectar. Last year the majority of my honey crop was brought in from spotted Knapp weed so I figured that in the next week or so there would be plenty of available nectar and all of the hives have the work force to bring it in.

July 10, 2011

There was good and bad news today. Hive number one is growing the slowest. When I checked the brood chamber I happened to see a varroa mite crawling around on some capped brood. (See picture at left, actual size is about the size of a pinhead.) This could be an infestation and may be the reason that this hive seems to be lagging behind the other two. I still have not put a second honey super on this hive. They even have a few frames in the top honey super that do not have the comb fully drawn out. They are somewhat behind; I may need to look into some varroa mite reduction procedures.
Hive number two had made excellent progress into the second super so they were actually ready for a third honey super. This is the strongest of the three hives. I saw lots of healthy brood so it looks as though its queen right and the honey is flowing in good.
Hive number three is not as strong as hive number two but they were ready for a second honey super. Just like before, when I placed the second honey super on top of hive number three, I also removed the queen excluder. So hive three is doing good with two honey supers and no queen excluder and weighed in at a whopping 182 pounds. This is a total of 37 pounds since three weeks ago when the photos were taken. Adding the second empty super added an additional 10 pounds of wood and wax so the total weight of the hive at this point is 192 pounds. I would like to know what hive number two weighs but I only have one scale. It looks like we will get a few pounds of honey this year especially if this honey flow keeps up.

Friday, July 1, 2011

I made a quick visit to the hives and installed an additional honey super on hive number two. So, as of the he beginning of July, hives one and three had one honey super each and a queen excluder. Hive number two had two honey supers and I had removed the queen excluder because the queen won’t pass through a full super to lay eggs, so I didn’t have to worry about her getting eggs and larva into the honey stores that I plan to remove. Not many people like larva and pupa on their toast I’m told.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Ted and I went in again and noticed that hive number two had made pretty good progress in filling up the top honey super. Since I was leaving town for the first week of July I wanted to get an additional honey super on that hive.

Friday, June 17, 2011

I went into the hives with Ted Nelson and some of his family members. We took a few pictures and a short movie clip to show some hive activity. As shown, hive number three is weighing in at about 134 pounds. All three hives showed good activity and as you can see from the photos there was a lot of capped brood so all the hives appear to be queen right. (That means each hive has a viable queen)

New Hive Pics! 6/17/2011