Honey Super and More

 Ready to go on
 

Myrina got her Medium Honey Super put on today.  It was from last year and has drawn out comb on Plasticell foundation.  I added spacers to it so now it's a 9-frame supper.  All the frames were sprayed with syrup before they went it.  Since the frames are drawn I went ahead & put the Queen Excluder on.  I will check in a week to see how they're doing.  Her bees were defensive as usual. 

 New Super & New Stand

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Mary got another gallon of 1:1 syrup.  The first gallon was about gone.  I had hoped see would have repaired the damaged comb in  Deep Hive Box-2.  But no new comb there.  Her bees are still very active.  She has the earliest flying bees in the yard each morning.

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The new colony (Duchess) has a small ant problem.  They are getting into the HTF through a gap.  All the equipment is new and because of the HTF the bees do not access to the Inner Cover, Vent Box, & T-cover.  SO, they can't seal everything with propolis.  I flicked out the dead ants.  They are not taking the syrup as fast as Mary but they're still taking it.  I looked in the new DHB and found frames 5 & 6 were almost all the way drawn out.  There was a small piece of bur comb on the top of frame 5 in the first DHB. It was removed.
 

Invaders!

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Frame 6 in DHB2

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 Bur Comb

And since the bees have not sealed all the interior wood there has developed a mold problem on the T-cover.  A big green spot of mold above the hole in the Inner Cover.

 Wood not sealed by the bees

I put what wax I had left right on top of the mold spot.  I didn't have enough to treat the whole T-cover.  If the mold gets worse I'll buy some wax and do the all of it. 

Bees wax over the mold.  Problem solved

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Inspection 5/20/10

Mary
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.

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New Brood Boxes

Yesterdays inspection showed that the New Colony (Duchess) needs an additional brood box.  Today I assembled the crimped-wire wax foundation frames and sprayed them with sugar syrup.  I finished painting 2 Deep Hive Bodies a day ago.  One is for the new hive and the other is for Mary.  I filled one with the frames and put in on the New Colony.  I used the smoker but didn't need it.  The bees were very calm.  The Hive top feeder was full, so that slowed things up a bit.  The 2010 package is now a Double-deep hive.  Moving right along.

I wanted to add-on to Mary today as well but couldn't.  I took her stored frames out of the freezer a few weeks ago to thaw.  Today when i opened the trash bag they were in I saw wax moths.  Dang it!  So i put them back in the freezer for a few days to kill them off.  I thought the trash bag would protect them but was wrong.  Oh well, lesson learned.

Mary's new DHB replaces an old DHB only; no new frames.  It will be filled with the established frames from the old DHB.  It was removed when Mary's population crashed last Winter.  She was reduced to a single DHB at the time.  The established frames are almost full, with honey & pollen.  Though there are some bare areas where I scraped the wax moth damage off.

I'll inspect Mary in a day or so when i can put the new box and frames on.  I expect to find the she has filled her current brood box.  If so it won't take long for her to fill the holes in the second brood box.  That being the case I could feasibly start adding honey supers to her if her population grows fast enough.  Her re-queening is still on schedule as soon as the breeder has them available. 

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Inspection 7/25/9

Mary & Myrina
89 F
Sunny

Mary - The honey frames that where filled with nectar are now partially filled with brood. Not much but some. Enough to tell me the young queen is very healthy. Perfect brood pattern. Also much of the honey is now capped. So I put that honey super back on top and reinstalled the queen excluder. I then put the undrawn honey super from the top down between the brood boxes. Hoping for similar results. This Plasticell really doesn't do the job.

NO boiling over of Mary during smoking. However she seemed more aggressive than usual. This is honey season so I think it will pass.

Myrina - Still has not drawn any frames. She is still badly understaffed from the late swarm. There is uncapped brood in a weak pattern in the boxes. I'm sure there are also eggs in the boxes but without glasses I can't say positively. Will leave everything alone for now. All I'll do with her is monitor her activity. I did pull out some more bur comb though. Also I put in a longer sceened reducer at the entrance.

I used the syrup water on Myrina again, along with the smoke. Heavy, heavy, heavy spray. I'm very impressed with how well it works on the mean bees.

I've taken to feeding the bees syrup every time it rains. Which as it turns out is almost non-stop. The rains continue here even though we are in our dry season. I saw a few girls up in the Ventilator box on Mary. Hopefully they are propolising all joints finally.

Venting Top Box - for Summer

I finished building a venting top box for both hives. It is 2.5 inches deep with 3 holes on each side but the back. Each hole is 1.25 inches in width. I used the same gauge screen used on screened bottom boards. I'm not worried about rain since the telescoping cover covers most of the vent holes (still there's enough of a gap for passive air circulation). It's my hope that this will cool the hives and prevent moisture build up.

My next step will be to build a screened bottom board for each hive. I'm still considering what features it will have. Boards with the tray for checking Varroa mites don't seem to vent as well as the boards without the extra tray. Maybe a taller board with side vents below the screen will do. I'll figure it out.

Also new is the use of sugar spray for inspections. I tried it tonight when looking at each hive. It did not work very well by itself. When sprayed the girls stayed where they were and began to lick up the sugar. What I wanted them to do was move further into the hive & relax. Even Mary had several bees get angry and come looking for me. She's always a calm hive but it's late in the year. SO, I added smoke to the sugar spray; a sort of double whammy. The combo worked very well as expected. The bees moved away from the work area then stayed there to clean off the sugar. This rates well with me and I will continue the practice.

Did I say I was in the hives? I checked to see if the bees were drawing out any of the honey frames now that the excluder was gone. Answer is NO. Linda, the lady from the last post, seemed convinced that the Plasticell was the problem. She also stressed that once the girls refuse a frame it's over and they'll never take it. She highly recommended that I scrap the plasticell and revert to wax & wire. So this is my last trick. I put the honey suppers between the brood boxes. I hope this will compel the girls to draw out the comb. All the deep frames I've put into the brood boxes with Plasticell have been drawn out successfully. So I hope they will get confused and draw out these too. I'll let you know.

Oddly they were making bur comb sideways on top of the brood boxes. Go figure.


I'm still excited about the up coming club meeting. I'll meet so many keepers at once plus all the questions I have. I'll likely chatter like an idiot until they just plain run from me. I should make up a list of questions and rank them. The meeting lasts an hour & a half so if I can get 10 answered I'll be doing good. Can't wait...