68 f
Cloudy
Mary has been busy lately. She spent a almost 2 weeks at my place of work before being moved to a new Stand in the back yard. While 'at work' she was in full sunlight. Something we don't have here in the yard. She used it wisely too. Her activity level increased remarkably so her population looks good now. The spot at work is a good one. I'd like to use it all the time. Right now it serves as only a temporary spot for moving hives & swarm catches.
The bees are working all 10 frames of the single Deep box. The population has filled the box. The number one reason I went in was to check for Swarm cells. None were found but there were some queen cups in the 'swarm position' on frame 6 & 2 cups in the 'Supersedure position' on frames 1 & 2. Right now 6 frames are filled with eggs, larva, & pupae. There was a handful of drone cells. Mostly on the bottom of frame #6. There were a few isolated drone cells mid-frame in a few spots too. They have even filled the end frames with fresh honey. For a week colony they are looking about as good as they can.
Chalkbrood is still an issue. A little on every brood frame. Frame 2 is half gone with it. Hence the dire need to requeen her. I'll be seeing a beek this weekend who has queens. I hope they're ready. Although I couldn't find the queen today at all. My beek neighbor helped me look but neither of us could find her. I was ready to mark her but no luck just yet.
The bees are making lots of bridge comb. The frames aren't too bad but I'd like to see less of it. I scraped the propolis off each frame a while back to maintain the right bee space. Yet every frame had a spot or two of it.
After all that it was time to add the second deep box. This is almost the same box & frames she had on her last year. I took them off when her population crashed last Winter. After it came off the frames went into the freezer and the box was retired. The box was original equipment from when I bought the hives. I wanted to put it back on last week but after I thawed the frames the Wax moths found them. I had to refreeze the frames for a few days to fix that problem. One frame has a new wood part after I dropped & broke the old one. I just transferred the old comb (plasticell) right into the new frame. A few others were cleaned up a bit with a sander. The box is new.
The frames in the second Deep Box
Before I put the frames in the box each one got sprayed with sugar syrup. As soon as the box went on the bees started to move up into it. I didn't pull any of these out to look. I'll check them in a week or so.
I put the hive top feeder on with a gallon of 1:1 syrup in it. I hope that will help the bees produce extra wax. That way they can quickly repair the wax moth damages cells in the second box.
*
No comments:
Post a Comment