Adding the Deep

I went in again last Monday and was SO EXCITED with what I found! It was amazing. We had eggs in all four hives, we had larvae, we had capped brood. There were worker bees feeding the babies, there were bees w/ pollen entering the hives. We had capped honey on the outer perimeter of the frames and on all four hives we had 7/8-10 drawn comb so it was time...

Time to add the deeps. That's what we did, the bees were happy and so was I. It was just what we needed to see!!

The only thing that was concerning is that three of the four hives haven't touched their syrup that i had given them. I am going to whip up fresh syrup, add a little bit of honey b healthy and try again - see how that works.

But overall.... YAY! I'm going to let them go for about two weeks then go back in and check again to make sure that all is going well. before you know it, I'll need to order some queen excluders and build honey supers!

Second Hive Check

Three days after the dreaded "burr comb incident" and things are really starting to look great!  I found all four queens and all hives have eggs laid in them.  Hive #1, which was the one with the original hive top feeder had already sucked up most of their syrup...and started building MORE BURR COMB with it.  Which I promptly removed...again...making about 2000 enemies very quickly in the process.   There are four frames to go to be built out, not quite ready for deep number two.  

Hive #2 looked wonderful.  Six drawn frames including pollen, honey and brood in the center, so beautiful.  This is the one with the nine frames.

Hive #3 looked wonderful.  Seven drawn frames, honey production in about four of those frames all along the outside of the brood.  It is looking very nice indeed.  

Hive #4 was no where near as messy as the first time I had gone in.  There was only a little bit of burr comb that had to be removed, but about six of the frames were fully drawn and full of bees. 

No swarm cells/No supercedure cells - I'm happy and so are the gurlz.  

We are going to have some good honey this year.  I can tell by the color, it will be wonderful.  So happy!  I will put the second deeps on as soon as I get them built and painted.  Next hive check in five days.  Adios and thanks for following!

One Week Check Up

I was excited to finally get back in to see what the girls had been up to, check on the queens, look for eggs and see how the hive had grown so far. I only had one hive top feeder, so three of the hives were without syrup on a daily basis. I did squirt them liberally with sugar water daily, but I was interested to see how things developed. Oddly, the hives that I were most concerned about did the best this last week.

Hive 1 had all wax foundation and a hive top feeder to stop. It was nearly empty when I checked them today, and I know why - they were fusing all of the frames together. It was a total mess. I had no idea what to do with it so I sliced though what I could and saved the frames I could and replaced the completely messed up frames with new frames with plastic (this won't be good, but it was all I had). I replaced two frames. The girls were not happy with me - it wasn't a good start.

Hive 2 was one that I was concerned about, it has a darker location, no hive top feeder and had spacers in between the frames so there were only 9 frames. This have did GREAT! Located the queen no problem, eggs were there, comb was being drawn on 5 out of the 9 frames (time to put on a new super next week I think - wow this is going fast) - I did put in some drawn comb from my last hive two years ago. The seemed to like it. This was the best hive, it made me feel like I knew what I was doing. I saw brood cells and there were honey cells around the tops of the frames. It was by the book. Very nice. I was in and out of there in a matter of minutes.

Hive 3 confirmed that I have no idea what I'm doing. It took me two times through the hive and still I didn't see a queen. I did, however see eggs so I didn't feel too bad about it. There were supercedure cells that I knocked off the frame. How is it possible they would start to do that already. The queen box was empty - I will have to go back in in a few days to find the queen. If she's not there and I can't find eggs - I'm going to have to order a new queen. Should be fun.

Hive 4 was a crazy mess, just like Hive 1. Frames of comb were fused together, crossing over - even though I used well-secured wax foundation. I couldn't lift the frames out because they were fused together so I sliced through two of the most drawn frames and pushed those frames to be the first and tenth frame in the hive - supported by the box so we didn't lose all the comb, then I replaced every other frame with cleaner frames from the hive w/ wax foundation. I hope that they don't abscond - it was traumatic for them - I'm sure. Also, there was a lot of burr comb that I pulled off as well. I wasn't sure what to do, but MAN the girls were unhappy! I couldn't find the queen from this hive and I swear I saw what looked like a queen cell starting to be built so I scraped it off as well. In addition, since I couldn't lift the main frames out, I couldn't check for the queen or eggs on them. I'm going blind on this hive and will have to go back in a few days to check for the queen and eggs.

Sigh - it was tough when I saw that the comb was crossing frames - my heart was breaking because of all of their hard work had gone to waste. All told, it took two hours and I don't know if I did the right thing by these bees. I found it was very easy to tell the drones and when the queens were present they were very easy to spot (thank you H&R Apiary). I loaded the hive top feeders for all the hives and thought that it was time to order the next deep super since things were progressing much faster than I had originally anticipated.

Some of the burr comb was filled with unsealed honey - It was beautiful. I'm going back into the hives where I couldn't find the queen in a few days, I'll let you know how it goes. 

What to Call the Honey? Honey.

Everyone knows you have to put a label on your honey...but I'm not sure what to name it.  Some suggestions have been:

-Dems My Bitches (not good for the kiddies though - would have to be the adult version)

-Ferry Farms Honey (Boring)

-Clifton Creek Honey (ZZzzzz)

-Fairy Tale Honey, Clifton VA 

I don't know, I want something fun and clever.  Suggestions much needed and very welcome!  HELP!

Installed the Bees on Monday

Well, the girls arrived at 7:30am and buzzed in the garage until the sun went down. 8 packages of bees, 20 lbs. or 20,000 bees. I had everything built and painted so it was really just a matter of getting them all into their new homes. I prepared four hives this year, so if all goes well everyone we know will be sick of honey (and sick of hearing about my bees - if they're not already).

I had to think about how to separate the boxes. Unlike when you order 3 lbs of bees, when you order five lbs the boxes are nailed together with four strips of wood so you can carry two packages of bees at a time. One is queenless, the other has that precious single bee that can make or break you. My dilemma was, how to get them apart so I could hive them and NOT disturb the bees too much as nails are creaking out of boxes and wood is cracking. I tried a few things, but what ended up working really well was my large pruning shears (you know the ones for small branches). I just softly broke the smaller sticks of wood that were holding the packages together and voila, my parcel of four became eight packages.

For all four hives, I installed the package w/ the queen first, got her in the box and then followed suit with the rest of the workers. I received my bees from H&R in Georgia this year and there were only a few that didn't make it. I was very happy with the passive, gentle nature of the bees.

After about 45 minutes, the hives were closed and the girls were in their new home. I only had one hive top feeder, though - this is my fear. I ordered three more right away and they still have not arrived. The hives were very active for the first four days, buzzing away -even without the hive top feeder (not having them is really going to slow down honeycomb production) - then the last two days have been rainy, so there has been no hive activity to speak of.

Monday I will check to see how the queen is doing.