Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Hive Inspection 8/24/2011

MYRINA
Mostly Sunny
84°F

When feeding Myrina the other day I saw a Wax Moth & a SHB in her.  I wanted to see if she was in bad shape or not.

Not what you want to see but they did a great job a cleaning it!
The first thing i saw were bees in the HTF.  So there must be a hole in the screening in put in but i couldn't find it.  I'll make some more and scrap the ones in here soon.

DHB2: frames
1 - Filled with brood & eggs
2 - Brood, eggs, some stores.  Spotty pattern. Queen (marked)
3 - Brood, eggs, some stores
4 - Pollen & uncapped honey
5 - empty.  Starting to add honey
6 - Uncapped Honey
7 - empty
8 - Full of uncapped honey
9 - some Honey
10 - Full of uncapped honey

DHB1: frames
1 - 1/2 pollen
2 - Brood & eggs.  Spotty pattern
3 - Brood eggs, pollen
4 - light pollen & honey
5 - pollen
6 - empty. little honey
7 - empty
8 - empty
9 - Some honey (SHB x3)
10 - some uncapped honey

Her population is smaller than i like and her stores are light too.  She is, however, adding brood & stores at an acceptable speed.  Plus, this inspection includes the first feeding.  A spotty brood pattern is typical for Fall yet she has several frames filled with eggs.  Interesting to note that there didn't seem to be ANY Drone Cells.  Though I did see a few drones walking around.  Another check in a week or so will confirm the end of Summer drones.

Filthy Rotten Bug! - Small Hive Beetle
The presence of the SHB is troubling.  fortunately i only found three of them.  I added a beetle trap to help the bees out.  I might put more in later.  No Wax moth were present.

The Slatted Racks are a Big Hit with the Ladies!
There wasn't any bridge comb and the frames looked clean.  The bees were calm and moved off nicely from the smoke.  I'll keep an eye on this queen hoping she can belt out a bunch of brood soon.

*_____________________________☼______________________________*

2 comments:

Doug Ladd said...

Are you sure those large headed bolts/screws are not keepign the top up and allowing the bees to walk right in from outside? i know many folks who love these and use the out cover, so if you do as well, i would assume the bolt heads are lifting the cover...

something to think about.

Doug Ladd
Buffalo Bee Farm

Hemlock said...

When i installed the screws on the first HTF's last year i measured them; the depth was good. The bee Leaks are only in the newer two. The bees have just enough room to wiggle through a side gap. The plastic guards have a straight edge while the mesh has a crenelated edge. Which allows for gaps too large if one doesn't cut the mesh wider than the plastic.

I should have done this http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kGiMHNH5RP0/TlFgNhPVSVI/AAAAAAAADIQ/4e6tQatO89s/s1600/8029_bee_feeder_new_ds.jpg

I hope to fix them this week.

Thanks