June 2020
June 2020
June 10, 2020 - Finally got a break in the rain so we went out to inspect and cut weeds. New queen from Sticky Cow Farms (position #7) seems to be doing ok. Also took out two more 4x4 posts so we could have the final three hives in line with the other supports. I sure the bees will appreciate it... LOL
June 15, 2020 - A new swarm of bees showed up in the water meter just outside of our house. After catching them in a 5 frame nuc we took them out to the other hives the next morning.
June 19&20, 2020 - We had concerns based on the last inspecton that some of the colonies were not thriving as much as we thought they should. We expected to see more egg/larve in some of the "extra" drawn frames or at least some development of new comb in the center frames. So we decided to reduce some of the hives to 5 frame hive bodies with a hanger board and add a top with an off-set feeder to accomodate frames on one side of the brood chamber.
You will notice that there is an odd pattern numbering the hive boxes. We started with hives on the far right and grew to the left with new colonies. Since we keep records of the inspections we decided that it would be easier to stay with the numbering system in place as we grew.
It was great to see bees in hives 7 & 9 today. We found hive 9 in our water meter at our house just over a week ago. Today I was able to find the queen and happy to see that she has started laying eggs. There was also about a 3 inch diameter of capped brood on new comb. Hive 8 seems to be doing well. Hive 7 (another new nuc) was doing well too even though they didn't take much of the sugar water.
Hives 6,5,4 seemed to be doing well. There was a fair amount of activity during my visit today. The shade from the trees just to the east will be going away soon with direct sun hitting all hives around 10am.
Hives 3,2,1 also seem to be doing well. Hive 1 appears to be very strong when view inside while replacing the sugar water mix. I think they may be my first colony to expand brood into a super. Hives 2 & 3 were reduced to five frames during my last inspection because they were so small. You can see in the image above I have replaced the lid with an off-set lid that allows feeding to just the five frames. We also saw a supersedure cell in hive 2 on the last visit. This queen would be the third queen the hive has had. When we bought the nuc the beek cut two swarm cells off of the frames. We have decided to let the hive take its own course and see what happens.
June 26 - Yes, just two days have gone by since I was at the hives last. I was not able to fill all the jars as much as I wanted and also wanted to see just how fast they were taking the sugar water. I am now concerned with hives 9 & 7. There were just a few bees in and out of these hives but all of the sugar water was gone for both. I will inspect on the next visit.
Hives 6,5,4 seemed to be doing well with a good number of bees visible when removing the jar on top of the hive. Hives 3,2,1 also looked good and will get a full inspection on the next visit.
The bottom image shows a good bit of dead bees below hive 1 & 2. While not a huge concern we will certainly keep an eye on these two hives.
