DO'h

As Homer Simpson would have said after the mistake I made yesterday…DO’h! I took a walk to the bee yard this morning, as I do most weekend morning, and as I looked at the hives there was something that just didn’t look right. I couldn’t put my finger on it until DO'h…….. Now I can’t believe I did it and then walked away without noticing. (Picture from yesterday). Below is a picture from today after fixing the mistake. The blunder?? I put a deep brood box with 10 medium frames on top of “Old Faithfull”. How exactly does one do that?? Well …….. I just purchased, assembled and painted that deep box. I had it in the shop at the same time as I was installing starter strips in the medium frames. Afterwards I used it to haul the frames out to the bee yard. Without giving it a second thought, I placed it next to the hive and after inspecting it, I placed the deep with the frames instead of a medium. No real harm done. As seen in this picture on the 5th frame from right to left, the bees built up some bur comb overnight. Below is a picture of the top of “Old Faithfull”. This is the medium supper (brood nest expanded into it temporarily), there is a deep box below it, and now a medium supper above it. It is just the last week of February, I have not fed this hive at all and notice how strong it looks.

I use a digital Cannon EOS with Macro lens because I love the detail of the macro lens.

A couple of days ago Mike from Mike’s Farm forwarded me a video he saw by “FatBeeMan”. His Small Hive Beetle trap idea sounds interesting and his choice of building materials is very unique. I embedded his video below; he is a very knowledgeable beekeeper. For more of his videos look him up on Youtube under “FatBeeMan”. I took his bait idea and implemented it in my inspection/trap drawer. Below is a picture of the inspection drawer with an orange juice plastic jug cap baited with Crisco shortening. The cap simply floats on the oil.

This is a close up of the Small Hive Beetles that were trapped before the bait was installed. They simply come in the drawer or are chased in by the bees. The beetles fall into the vegetable oil and die. With the bait I’m hoping more will wander in.

Picture of the bait
The "FatBeeMan" on how to build and bait a Small Hive Beetle trap. I like his choice of construction materials.