The mid-May inspection was difficult for me, so I asked my friend Art, who’s been keeping bees longer, to help me out.
Pictures here: http://linode.siwko.org/2010-05-31-inspection/
Details later, but we saw a queen cell on frame 7 and decided to split that frame over to Art’s house.
Mary-Grace and I went out on Sunday to take a look at the hive. The weather has been warm for the last two weeks with temperatures in the 80’s and 90’s. It’s been very dry and I put a jar of water out, which the bees do not appear to have touched. I guess they’ve got other sources in this land of lawn sprinklers.
I didn’t use any smoke, but this inspection was very difficult for me for other reasons. There were so many frames with plenty of bees and I didn’t have a place to put the frames pose inspection. I put one leaning on the platform on either side of the hive to make room to slide the rest. Still there wasn’t enough room and my gloves got very sticky and covered with bees resulting in some bumps as I disengaged from the frames. Bees don’t like bumps and there were some angry flights at my hood. I’m going to have to have Bill and Art come over to tutor me the next time and maybe get another hive body so I can swap back and forth each inspection.
Getting to the frames underneath is also troublesome and I hate crushing bees as I put the top box back on the bottom box.
Frame 1 (out): About 10 bees crawling around two weeks ago, about 40 bees this time. The foundation on this frame is not straight, it bows out.
Frame 1 (in): 4 bees crawling -> 70 bees crawling
Frame 2 (out): About 150 bees crawling around on this side.
Frame 2 (in): There were only about 20 bees crawling around two weeks ago. This time, there’s comb and capped honey in a band across the top. The comb hasn’t reached the bottom of the frame, but there’s liquid in the cells that have been built.
Frame 3 (out): The progress on this frame in two weeks is marvelous. There’s comb to the bottom of the frame, a band of honey at the top and the bees are in the process of sealing in some larvae in the middle of the frame.
Frame 3 (in): A good number of bees. A band of honey at the top and a band of larvae in the middle.
Frame 4 (out): The holes in the comb have been partly repaired. The whole comb, except for a band of honey at the top is sealed brood, dotted with larvae and nectar.
Frame 4 (in): Like the other side of the frame, this one is full of brood, dotted with nectar and larvae with a strip of honey at the top.
Frame 5 (out): Most of the brood cells are now occupied by larvae, so we’re on the next generation of bees from the last inspection.
Frame 5 (in): A mix of nectar, larvae and sealed brood. The queen’s down on the lower right of the frame.
Frame 6 (in): More bees than two weeks ago. A mix of sealed brood, larvae and nectar.
Frame 6 (out): Like frame 5 and the inside of 6, there’s less sealed brood and more larvae and nectar.
Frame 7 (in): About the same amount of sealed brood but more larvae here this time.
Frame 7 (out): Some honey around the top here this time. A mix of larvae and sealed brood on the rest of the comb.
Frame 8 (in): Like frame 3, this frame’s gone from comb activity to honey at the top with mostly sealed brood and some larvae on the rest of the comb.
Frame 8 (out): Honey at the top, sealed brood in a band across the middle.
Frame 9 (in): Few bees last time, band of honey with nectar down below the half-way mark on the frame.
Frame 9 (out): The comb is starting to develop here now.
Frame 10 (in): A few dozen bees crawling about. No development.
Frame 10 (out): A few bees crawling about. No development.
Frames 11-14: Added 3 frames last time. These frames are wired on both sides of the foundation as an experiment (and to avoid using an embedder). There are bees crawling up and down these frames, but there appears (I didn’t really look too hard) to be no construction work going on. These frames are between the door and the frames above, so maybe they’re just commuting to work?
In the late afternoon, Noah and I went out to the hive. There’s been so much activity since the last inspection (I did one without pictures and without reporting here in early April). At that time, there were more bees and more brood.
This time, there’s been a bee/brood explosion and activity on frames that have never been used. I also saw a bee attack a hive beetle which was very good to see.
Frame 1 (out): some bees here. I don’t think I’ve ever seen bees here!
Frame 1 (in): bees here too!
Frame 2 (out): bees here, which is new. Killed a hive beetle on the frame.
Frame 2 (in): bees here!
Frame 3 (out): hundreds of bees. Comb near the top. Maybe some nectar storage beginning. this frame was untouched previously. There’s a hole in the middle of the frame
Frame 3 (in): hundreds of bees. A glob of comb has been built near a hole. Perhaps the foundation broke and the bees built it up anyway? There’s new comb toward the upper right of this frame. It looks like mostly nectar storage, but there might be some pollen in there also.
Frame 4 (out): There were no bees at all on this frame last month. Now there are hundreds. Holes around the wires have lengthened into long gaps. The comb is much better developed and looks to be used for nectar.
Frame 4 (in): thousands of bees? The picture’s blurry but there appears to be good comb development and perhaps pollen storage.
Frame 5 (out): this frame has been converted from honey to brood. Thousands of bees here, maybe 2/3 brood.
Frame 5 (in): Another brood explosion here. Honey’s gone, brood and larvae on a good half of this frame.
Frame 6 (in): Thousands of bees. Honey gone, brood on 2/3 of the frame.
Frame 6 (out): Thousands of bees. maybe 50% brood?
Frame 7 (in): Thousands of bees. 50% brood. Queen seen running to other side of frame.
Frame 7 (out): fewer bees here than on the last few frames. Brood in middle have hatched, brood ring around center.
Frame 8 (in): hundreds of bees. Comb developing, liquid storage. Nothing here last month.
Frame 8 (out): thousands of bees. comb developing on upper half.
Frame 9: a handful of bees on either side.
Frame 10: a few bees on the inside of the frame. This is a new development.
Frame 11: A frame in the box below appears to be untouched. Moved it to under the center of the hive.
With all the brood in there, this hive looks set to explode. I guess I’d better start wiring up some more frames!
This is the first inspection with pictures of the year. I’ve peeked in to make sure the bees were still alive from time to time. I also restacked the hive so that the body is on top of the empty hive body and the super was on top.
The super didn’t align so I put 8 bricks on opposing corners to keep the seal tight some time ago.
Frames 1,2,3, 8 and 9 were pretty empty. I knocked a hole in the bottom of the frame 1 foundation by dropping the cover on it. Oops.
I found 3 small hive beetles in the comb on frame 4. I flicked them out with a pine needle.
The bee population is quite low compared to last inspection.
Here’s how things look:
Frame 4 (out): pretty empty. That hole is still there .
Frame 4 (in): some honey left here, hive beetles too. About 30 bees crawling around.
Frame 5 (out): maybe 150 bees crawling about. Capped honey left over, maybe 30 cells of sealed brood.
Frame 5 (in): capped honey on the left and right, about 200 bees, lots of sealed brood, some larvae visible, a big band of pollen, liquid in a U shaped band under the brood/pollen.
Frame 6 (in): similar to the facing frame, honey on either side, a band of pollen, brood in the middle with liquid near the borrom left and right of the pollen band.
Frame 6 (out): The queen’s right in the middle. Maybe 300 bees. This frame was like the last two sides except that there were far more larvae visible and the pollen was concentrated in the upper left.
Frame 7 (in): Another 200 bees, honey on either side. No brood sealed, but plenty of larvae visible. There’s a good stock of pollen here and liquid in a band all around.
Frame 7 (out): About 30 bees here. This side’s pretty empty. There may be a few larvae in there and there are some cells that look like they’re plugged with a white cap.
Pictures here: http://linode.siwko.org/2010-03-25-inspection/
It’s been 23 days since I took a quick peek in the hive. We haven’t had a freeze yet. John affirms that the bees are there, “see bees, not dead.”
It was a nice day today. Noah and I went out with the camera to do an inspection.
We found and killed 3 hive beetles. I tried brushing bees off a frame to see what they were up to which they didn’t like at all. I saw the queen. There’s a lot more honey than last time and there’s even some pollen. I’m encouraged that the bees will live. Later I looked at the pictures and I didn’t see the queen in them. She could be too quick for me. I hope I didn’t get her with the brush. I don’t think the brush really added any value.
I took the sugar water out a week or two ago and the bees have been living off the land. There’s much more honey than in my last set of pictures 6 weeks and 2 days ago. I hope it came from the land, but I can’t say for sure. It looked like the bees may have been eating honey because there were bees inside some cells.
Let’s take a look at the changes since the October 8th inspection (6 weeks, 2 days):
Frames 1, 2, 3: no change
Frame 4 (outside): I think there’s more comb built out on this side, but the big change was that frames 4 and 5 were stuck together and there’s a big hole in frame 4 about 8 cells in diameter. The bees appear to be either using the cells in the hole or repairing it. We’ll see next time.
Frame 4 (inside): There’s a nice wide band of capped honey on this frame now. It’s about 8″ wide and in the top half of the frame. The cells below the band look like they have water or nectar in them. There were more bees on this frame than last month. They’re mostly on the cells below the capped honey.
Frame 5 (outside): This frame is now about half capped honey. There’s a ball of sealed brood in the center. I see some larvae and some empty (maybe with eggs) cells. Other cells appear filled with liquid as before. There appear to be far fewer bees than last month. There are few bees on the capped honey, they’re all on the other cells, so perhaps the bees are elsewhere in the hive.
Frame 5 (inside): Fewer bees on this frame, but lots of activity in a band around the brood. Few bees on the honey. The queen was on the very bottom of this frame before brushing. I’ll bet she ran over to the other side! This is the dirtiest capped honey I’ve ever seen. This must be a high traffic area.
Frame 6 (inside): Capped honey extends almost to the bottom of the frame around the circle of brood in the center. Last month is was just in the top corners with a little band across the top. There was far more brood last month. This is the largest brood patch in the hive. There is sealed brood and larvae and some empty cells. The honey is as dirty as on frame 5. Not many bees here.
Frame 6 (outside): Almost the same as the other side of this frame. Plenty of brood, honey almost to the bottom of the frame and dirty. There are pollen cells. Not many bees here.
Frame 7 (inside): Mostly honey on this frame. There’s pollen where the brood would be. Not too many bees on this frame.
Frame 7 (outside): Lots of bees here, many more than last month. I can’t see what the bees are doing, but I suspect they’re filling this frame with nectar for honey.
Frame 8 (inside): There were fewer than a dozen bees on this frame last month. Now there’s some good activity. There may be some comb built up, it’s hard to tell.
Frame 8 (outside): No activity.
Frames 9 and 10 show no change.
I closed up and put in a jar of sugar and an overflow jar (6 cups 1::1 made more than one jar).
I heard from Naomi that Noah heard from Gabriel that Art’s bees are gone. Noah was worried about our bees. I was worried about our bees. We both checked to see that they were coming and going nicely.
In the afternoon I put on the bee jacket and gloves and took a quick look at the hive. I didn’t use smoke.
I saw, and squished, two beetles that were a bit like roaches in that they were flat and light brown.
Half the sugar jar has been consumed.
The bees seem to be smaller, but as the camera is in the car, I have no pictures and can’t compare.
I pulled frames 1, 4, 5 and 8 today. Frame 1 is unused as before. Frame 4 inside has a lump of capped honey about the size of a grapefruit in the middle of the frame. Frame 5 was really, really heavy which I take as a good sign. The bees don’t seem to be doing anything with frame 8 as in the past.
It’s been about 10 days since I fed the bees. I figured the syrup would last about 6 days and after 10 it was pretty clear that it was long gone.
After I took out the old jar, one bee came out through the inner cover, into the feeder, roamed around a bit then went back down into the hive. I guess she was just checking to see whether the syrup was back.
I did a quick inspection with no smoke this morning.
I had been worried about robbing, but I didn’t see any capping flakes on the bottom of the hive.
Frames 1,2,3 unchanged.
I scraped propolis off the spacers of all frames before closing up.
Frame 4 is showing a bit more comb on the outside. I can’t tell, but I think there might be a bit of liquid in the cells. The inside has yet more bees than than last time and possibly a little more comb drawn.
Frame 5 (outside): I’d guess there are about twice as many bees, but they’re all in the middle of the frame. They seem lighter in color. The sealed brood is lower on the frame. There is now some capped honey at the top of the frame. I see a few larvae, but not as many as before. The bees are pretty thick, though.
Frame 5 (inside): There’s a little more capped honey on this side, but not much. Many more bees, but clustered in the middle of the frame. It looks to me that the pollen stores are being consumed. They’re deeper in the cells and look darker. Even thought the bees are thick, there’s clearly more sealed brood.
It does appear that I reversed frame 6 last time. I did not reverse again.
Frame 6 (inside): The queen is on this frame. The honey is capped much farther down the left and right sides of the frame. There are many more bees and as on other frames, they’re in the center of the frame now. I didn’t see any pollen this time. but there appears to be sealed brood where there were larvae last time. I don’t see any larvae this time.
Frame 6 (outside): As on the other frames, there are many more bees here this time. There’s a bit more honey and perhaps some pollen, though it’s too thick to see through the bees.
Frame 7 (inside): More capped honey and more pollen. Many more bees.
Frame 7 (outside): Fewer bees. The liquid seems to have been drawn down.
Frames 8, 9, 10 unchanged.
I’ve seen a whole lot more pollen coming in to the hive recently. I don’t know where it’s going.
Pictures here: http://linode.siwko.org/2009-10-08-inspection
I got just over 3 jars of syrup out of a 10 lb bag of sugar a few days ago. Today I checked on the jar I put out. They’ve eaten about 1/2 of the syrup in 3 days. Let’s assume that 10 lbs of sugar went into 3 jars, that’s 3 1/3 lbs of sugar per jar. They appear to be eating about 9 oz of sugar per day. At $4.50/ 10 lb bag, the bees are consuming about $.25 a day in sugar. If they ate all year round at this rate, they’d consume the dollar equivalent of 23 lbs of honey in a year. This is a worst case for my hive at current consumption rates.
I’m feeding the bees just to get them through the winter.
I do not want Domino sugar honey in the supers (there are no supers on now).
I went out before the rain on Saturday to check the hive. Noah took the pictures for me this time and we used a tripod, flash and the high resolution / high ASA settings on the camera.
It had been 12 days since the last inspection which is what I’ve adopted as my target until I learn more. The weather is overcast today, bees seem to be coming and going despite the clouds but the hive seems fuller of bees than the last time.
We saw 3 small hive beetles and killed two of them. Art’s getting some SHB traps for his hive.
The hive appeared clean, the bees weren’t angry. They buzzed when smoked and none flew right at me. One sat on my face screen for a few minutes and there were a few fly-bys but it was a pretty peaceful inspection. Most of the children watched from behind Noah.
Frames 1, 2, 3 are as in the last inspection, largely untouched.
Frame 4 shows some change. There does seem to be some drawn comb started on the outside. I can’t tell whether there’s more. The inside had many more bees than the last inspection. I estimate that there were about 200 bees in the center of the frame and the comb was being drawn out more. I’ll have to start taking pictures both head on and from the side next time.
Frames 5, 6, and 7 are the nuc frames.
Frame 5 (outside): The queen is on this side of this frame. There are many more bees. The bees have built up the comb on the top of the frame so that it bulges. There is sealed brood in the center surrounded by larvae. I estimate there are about 3 times more brood and larvae than 12 days ago. The remaining cells appear to be filled with nectar, but the picture may show more young larvae extending to the bottom of the frame.
Frame 5 (inside): There are more bees (about double?). Some of the pollen has been taken out. The larvae from the last inspection are now sealed brood and there are more larvae where the sealed brood used to be. The bees appear to be capping some honey at the top of the frame. It’s in a band about 4 cells wide across about 2/3 of the frame.
Frame 6 (inside): More bees here. About half of the sealed brood has hatched with more larvae about this time. I missed some capped honey on the last inspection. This time there’s a nice band across the top with the left corner coming down about 10 cells worth. Pollen appears about the same quantity but moved.
Frame 6 (outside): More bees here. The sealed brood / larvae appear to be cycling here as on the other frames. Larvae appear to dominate this time. As on the inside of the frame, there’s a good bit of capped honey, but the caps still have small holes in them.
Frame 7 (inside):More bees here. Pollen may have grown slightly, but I can’t tell. Honey is being stored across the top of the frame.
Frame 7 (outside):Many more bees here. This may all be nectar. All I can tell is that the frame appears fuller than before. There is at least one pollen cell.
As before, I didn’t look at frames 8, 9, and 10 although, checking my notes, I did think I saw some drawn comb on 8. I may have put 6 in backwards. I’ll have to check against the pictures and number the frames next time.
My hope for next time is to see more honey and more drawn comb on 4 and 8. I’m also concerned about the pollen and how much the bees need to make it through the winter.
The weather has been wetter and there have been many more flowers. Coworkers have been complaining of pollen allergies. I hope that this will be good for the bees.
Pictures here: http://linode.siwko.org/2009-09-26-inspection
