Feeding Again

The picture below is just an animated picture. It’s basically pictures (six in this case) layered on each other and animated. I hope it works, click on the picture and click the reload button on the browser to watch it again. It shows my current set up..

The TBH and the hive to the right are waiting on packages or splits. I haven't made up my mind how I'm going to work it all yet, but by the end of this season I hope to have colonies running on all of them plus a support Nuc.

My Citrus allergies began to act up yesterday. I walked over to my trees and sure enough.......Citrus has begun to bloom. Although the pollen count is currently high; I decided to start feeding again due to a cold front approaching. High winds and lower temperatures will not be ideal for the bees to forage.

On the other hand, the colony seems strong and it’s not good to have too many idle bees. A swarm from the colony right now would not be ideal. My prevention effort was to provide more room and work in the form of placing the 1st honey supper of the season.

I simply removed the last wooden frame (no foundation), and placed another plastic foundation frame in what has become my 1.5 hive (1 deep body, 1 medium body). The supper pictured below is now composed of ten plastic frames.

Next I placed a queen excluder, and a medium supper with 9 wooden frames (with starter strips), and in the middle the one full frame I removed from the medium below.

On top of this sits my feeder. Hopefully feeding should maintain the population boom, and give them resources to build comb on these frames. My uneducated guess would say that by mid to late April I should be able to fill some comb honey requests

Holy Cow __________ !!!!!!!

Holy Cow - look at all the bees, Holy cow - I got stung …..Again!!! Holy Cow - the brood expanded into the medium supper, Holy Cow - here comes the drones, Holy Cow - is that a queen cell????? Holy Cow I think the hives look better painted yellow. Fill in the blank for the title; I couldn’t make up my mind on which one to use.

Let’s begin with the hive’s progress. I think it’s looking awesome for late February. I can not believe how many bees there are. The only frames not drawn out as of today are each of the outside ones on the supper but they are being worked on. Here is a picture of how the deep body looked after I pulled the medium off.

Well, it had been a while since I’d been stung. Looks like I’m building quite the nice immunity to it, or I removed the stinger out of my forearm before I got a good dose of poison. The area is a little sore but there is hardly any swelling. I’m just one more sting away from double digits.

The bees have expanded the brood into the medium supper. I am now the proud keeper of a 1.5 Beehive. This was an intentional move on my part (One deep body and one medium body). The following picture is a beautiful brood pattern (dark Yellow) below capped honey (white), all one of the medium frames. (click to enlarge, and roll mouse over picture for tags)
Now here is a great pattern on a deep frame.

The medium from now on will no longer be a supper; it is now part of the body. I would had preferred to have the medium on the bottom, but I can rotate them next winter when there are less bees to worry about. The pro of a 1.5 hive is a larger work force. The con is that it’s harder to find the queen. So what now??? I’m going to put on the queen excluder and another supper, and then feed one more gallon to help them draw it out. The new supper will be mine to harvest. I built eight wooden medium frames with starter strips. I will place it on as soon as I get home tomorrow from work. It will ease the overcrowding in the hive and give the idle work force something to do. Picture of Idle force below. Here is one of those wedge wooden frames with a starter strip. There are drone cells every where. Drone cells are usually described by everyone as tips of a 22 caliber bullet. According to Michael Bush’s math, the drones will be ready for matting flights in about 2 weeks (if they were to all emerge from their cells tomorrow). My new queen will be here in 3 weeks. Here is something that freaked me out a little. Is a picture of mostly drone cells but notice the larger cell? At 1st I though it may be a new queen cell, meaning the hive could be getting ready to swarm.
After posting the picture on Beesource, all worries were put to rest. One very important thing was pointed out. Queen cells are built vertical, not horizontal. I know that too. Then there was an observation made about how the adjacent cells have not been capped yet, in turn making that lone one look bigger. I should have seen that in my own picture. The Beekeeping forum community is a great asset.

I found my can of yellow paint. I can’t believe I still have 2/3 of paint left; and I can’t believe I actually think everything looks better painted yellow. The TBH looks like it belongs here now.


Click here for all of todays images

Blink and They are Gone

I will call myself a “Beekeeper” if I’m able to pull off my spring management without much of a snag. I’m fully aware of what is about to take place, the goal of most beehives in spring is to multiply by swarming (old queen and most of the workers leave taking most of the honey crop in search of a new home). What I’m not sure about is the time table MY bees and nature have in mind. Beekeepers in the state can tell me of their usual swarm dates, but their dates don’t necessarily coincide with my area.

I’m very dependent on one single date..... the delivery date of the new queen destined for my split. I’m getting somewhat concerned that the bees may swarm earlier and for all practical purposes jump start the gun.

Here is the reason why. This is the view of the hive on the fist week of January.

The bees sucked dry the feeder over the weekend. The minute it was dry, mold began to grow, and small hive beetles began sneaking in. I decided to remove the feeder to give it a good scrub down, and take a quick look on the progress by just looking down the supper frames. I’m truly amazed at how things can change if you blink at the wrong time. I fed them a total of 3 gallons (1:1 sugar water) for 2 ½ weeks. This was the view of the hive this afternoon.(6 weeks after 1st picture)

Is looking too healthy this early in the year a problem? I need to delay them for less than 4 weeks to the weekend of March 15th. I’m going to postpone feeding for now. I want to literally tear down the hive for a meticulous inspection. I'm going to remove any old queen cells from last year so that there is no confusing any in the next few weeks, and to confirm if they are progressing as good as I think they are, and check brood patterns (drone cells being a priority). I did get some awesome shots today like this one (see them all here)


There are two positives on my side as of now. My queen is about six months old. That's way too young for most queens to think about swarming and so far there are no live drones to be found. New queens need drones to mate. I know that and the bees know that, but blink right now and you can overlook the whole thing.


Side note, my TBH is in place. It needs a landing board, needs to be secure to the stand better, and needs started strips on the bars. I also hate the color, I'm looking for my never ending yellow paint can.