Hive Inspection 5/11/13

ROZINA
70°F
Mostly Sunny
Calm

Rozina has lots of bees doing orientation flights lately.  She should have plenty of emerging bees now.  My biggest concern is if she has enough space to lay.

Opening her up it was nice to see the bees had finally finished the syrup.  It was also nice to see no ants had found it.  The ants did find the detritus in the closed off Screened Bottom Board though. Like i've said before, around here bees aren't that interested in Spring syrup.  Rarely does it all get taken.  Leaving me with jars of syrup in the fridge until Fall. 

A cleaned out Hive Top Feeder

The top box was filled with seven frames of brood, some drone cells, and two nicely developed Queen cups in the swarm position.  Neither of which had an egg in it.  What i didn't see was any space for the queen to lay.  The Pollen the bees are bringing in is the same color as the existing wax.  Which looks like capped short worker cells.  It could be the Yellow poplar which is now in bloom.

Wax & pollen the same color

The Bottom box had several frames of newly laid eggs as the Queen has finally moved down.  This brought many of the bees down too.  Who are now working the frames.   I was worried she might not ever drop down to this box since the whole colony went straight into the top box after the queen was released.  Fortunately I found her down there too and marked her.

Queen Rozina freshly marked

Not the biggest queen i've had but her brood pattern and productivity are good.  She was on frame two which is an all honey edge frame.  I believe she was looking for somewhere to lay but she had already filled up the available frames.  So it's time for another box.

Rozina with three medium ten frame boxes

Added to the hive was another medium brood box.  This box comes with four filled honey frames and six not so drawn wax foundation frames.  All from previous dead-outs and what-not.  The bees will need to finish drawing out the middle frames for the queen to lay in them.  To help out i'm going to put yet another gallon of syrup on the bees.  The flow seems OK but some cool weather is on the way which might keep the bees from doing much.  They've not been encouraged to make much wax.  I hope this spurs them on.  If so we could get some honey frames drawn later on.

The overall population in the colony is up to OK from Fair.  She has plenty of bees on every frame but does not cover the frame.  By August her population should be High.  The frames won't be visible and the Slatted Rack will be packed with bees. 

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Hive Inspection 4/23/13

LITTLE MISS & ROZINA
70°F
Sunny
Calm

A View of Little Miss from Rozina

Rozina was a bit defensive when i opened her up.  Her gallon of 1:1 syrup had crystallized.  It looked like she took maybe half of it before it hardened.  The bees were mostly up in the top box still.  frames 2 & 3 had capped worker pupa & eggs, nectar, pollen, & honey.  Frames 4, 5, & 6, were solid eggs or larva.  Frames 7 had a bunch of eggs too but the queen had put more than one egg into a few cells.  Young queens will do that from time to time.  The workers sort it out afterward.  The queen should stop doing that soon.  The Queen was on frame 9, a nectar frame.  This box had plenty of walking Drones too.  The ones that came in with the package.  The population in the top box was fair.

Bad habits of young Queens

The bottom box was being back filled with pollen and nectar.  The Queen hadn't got down there yet.  Plus, there are still lots of empty cells for the queen to use.  The worker population in this box was poor.

For a new colony she is doing well.  I don't know why she moved up to the top box so fast.  Just as long as she moves down again instead of swarming once the top box is filled.

Little Miss was very calm in contrast to Rozina.  Lots of activity in her new top box.  Frames 5, 6, 7,  & 8 had eggs, larva, & pupa.  The Queen was on frame 5.  The population in this hive was OK.

A very good Queen Miss

The bottom box had 4 frames of brood; 5, 6, 7, & 8.  Though frame 6 is almost a solid frame of drone cells and they've begun to emerge.  The brood pattern was spotty but those are the over-wintering frames.  Productive but not uniform.  I believe they'll work it out but i'll keep an eye on it.  Also patches of new honey being capped on the outer frames.

Almost solid Drone Frame

Both colonies look good for now.  They need to continue brooding up.  Still hoping to make some splits if the population grow fast enough.  Still waiting for Rozina to find the bottom box.

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Quick Peek & Brood boxes

Nuc #5 (Mab)
Nuc #6 (Gumption)

On Feb 28th i took a quick look at the two nucs.  Nuc #5, or Mab, is packed with bees and has three of her five frames loaded with brood.  The queen looked big & healthy as always.  This colony was my first captured swarm from last year.  Her population plummeted last fall but now she'll be ready to swarm in no time.

Nuc #6, Gumption, Has two of five frames in brood.  She doesn't have the number of bees Mab does but she's drawing comb already.  She is a late September swarm.  I never took her seriously though she continuously laid eggs.  So she's off to a great start now that she survived Winter.  So i finally marked the Queen; with white since she is from last year.

Since Mab is full of bees & Gumption is drawing comb they both received an additional brood box (5 frame Nuc) today.

Ready to go with old frames & new wax foundation

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Mab's (nuc #5) new yellow Medium Brood box

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and Gumption's (nuc #6) new yellow Brood box too

I intend to inspect a few hives this weekend.  Might need to reverse some boxes to hold off swarming.  This Winter has been VERY mild and the bees are way ahead of schedule.

 

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