Andrew Siwko’s Blog #2

Noah and I went out to check the hive today after the split on Thursday.  The new frame 7 was stripped of much of its foundation and there were rectangles of partially built comb falling off and some on the floor of the hive.  I’m interested in the idea of letting the bees build their own comb without foundation so I’m not going to replace this frame.  We’ll see what happens with the bits that are left.

This week I stumbled across this video on a beekeeping Trappist monk done by Virgina Currents:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izvcXXoxQMQ

It looks like his frames don’t have foundation on them, but perhaps there are wires.  Interesting.

Back to the inspection.  We found the queen on the outside of frame 2.

When I opened the hive, a carpenter bee fell in.  It was surrounded by bees immediately.  I fished it out and one bee stuck with it for quite some time before it got away.

I saw and killed two hive beetles in the top brood box.  I’ve only got 5 frames up there now and the box is otherwise empty.  I guess it’s hard to defend all that open space from the beetles.

Pictures here:  http://linode.siwko.org/2010-06-05-inspection/

Art came over Thursday night between thunderstorms and we pulled out frame 7 and sent it home with him.  There was what we thought was a queen cell there during the last inspection and thought it best to allow the cell to mature in another hive.

Working with bees at night was very interesting.  The hive was full of them and they were quite docile.  When I put a replacement frame in for #7, it sane in slowly under its own weight as into molasses.

We looked in the new hive for the queen, just in case she hitched a ride.  We couldn’t see here and Art reported the next day that she was not there.  (I found her at home later).

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.