Feeders Off!

We went out for a few minutes Monday and took the empty supers and feeders off of the hives.  There wasn't nearly as many bees in the feeders, which was good.  We leaned the feeders up against the landing boards so that the stragglers would go back into the hive that night.

Tuesday, there were still bees on one of the feeders.  That leads me to believe that there might have been some brood in those combs and the bees didn't want to leave it.  Hopefully they'll get back in the hive.  I hope to have some time today or tomorrow to go and check it out.  And hopefully, everybody will be back in their hives.

Successful Day at the Hives

We had a good day at the hives.  We spent yesterday doing inventory to see what equipment we had and what we lacked.  I'm glad we did as I hadn't calculated correctly, and we were short one deep brood box.  I had ordered two to put the swarm in, but they weren't assembled yet.  So we put them together and Dad painted them so they would be ready this morning.

We got everything loaded into the wagon and ready for the beeyard:

I've got to give credit where credit is due and say that Jim Gentry, our local beekeeper's association president sure knows what he's talking about when he told us about his guarenteed sure-fire super-duper smoker fuel - pine needles.  I've had 100% success lighting and maintaining smoke and even refilling the smoker with pine needles.  Only problem is that they do burn up pretty quickly.  I tried adding some Brushy Mountain smoker fuel in with the pine needles this time, but I guess I didn't add enough, as I still had to refuel about half way through our work today.

The current status of the yard was two hives with packages and two hives with nucs.  We started with the two hives with nucs, as they were going to take the most work.  If you remember, we put the nucs into the hives on a rainy day, so we hadn't spent too much time on them.  Also, we didn't have enough cinder blocks to get them to the same height as the other two hives.  I was afraid we'd find hives full of wax moths and/or small hive beetles (SHBs).  So today Dad had to move the hive, move the mat and cinder blocks around to a level spot, add two more blocks, and replace the hive.  On the first hive, we changed the bottom board out because the one that was on there wasn't painted yet (we got behind in our painting chores).  Then we added another brood box to the one deep that was already there.  The bees had built comb up into the feeder, and the comb was full of honey (and some drone comb - no mites found - yea!) and it was full of bees.  I didn't want to leave four feeders with comb and bees out in the yard, and I was afraid I'd kill a lot of bees if I tried to scrape the comb out of the feeders.  So what I'm trying is to put the inner cover on top of the new brood box, then an empty super, then the feeder, then the telescoping cover.  I've got all four hives set up this way.  The reason I'm doing it this way is that I tried putting supers with extracted comb on top of the hive for the bees to clean out last year, and they filled the comb up with honey again.  I'm not complaining, but it doesn't help to get the comb cleaned out.  Supposedly, if you put an empty super between the inner cover and what you want the bees to clean, the space is supposed to fool them into thinking that it's outside the hive, and they need to bring the stuff back down into the hive.

Here's a picture of the comb in the feeder, and the top of the frames where the feeder was setting:

We got them all took care of and Dad decided it was a good time for him to mow since he was still suited up.  So he got that done.

I really appreciate his doing all the work since I've still got a bad back (I go back to the doctor next week to get a release for work).  He did a great job and I think he's enjoying this new hobby.  It's great spending time with him.

Here's the hives after our inspection today - cinder blocks, double deeps, and feeders moved up for clean out.  I did pull the bottoms out of the screened bottom boards (I had them in to prevent absconding during installation).  I couldn't find any mites.  I did see a couple of SHB larvae, but I couldn't find any in the hives, so hopefully the hives are strong enough to take care of the SHBs.

Dreadful Anticipation

Well, if things go right, I'm going to peek into the hives this afternoon.  I think I feel good enough to get out and have Dad be my hands and back.  It' been several weeks since I've been able to get to the hives because of my back injury, and I just don't know what I'm going to find.  I hope they're all alive and not in too bad of shape.  According to a thread on beesource.com, the nectar flow has been unusually good, so they're probably bursting at the seems or may have even swarmed.  I guess we'll find out.  I've to get some more boxes and frames ready before we open hives.

Spring is not the time for a debilitating injury if you're a beekeeper.  Please don't take your back (or any of your health) for granted.  And be sure to hydrate before, during, and after going out in the beeyard.

Lots of things going on (and not going on)

The good news is that all four hives are thriving and need more room.  The other good news is that the swarm trap has a swarm residing in it now.  The bad news is that I've been in bed for two weeks with a strained back.  I'm up and about now with a walker, but not ready to work on hives yet.  Hopefully by Monday I'll at least be able to suit up and point and Dad will be able to do the lifting and manipulations.

Went to the Cherokee Beekeepers Association last night and we had a fairly good crowd.  The presentation was Ten Ways To Kill Your Bees Dead.  I agree that the presented methods will definitely kill your bees.

Nectar in Tennessee - Where? When? How?

Here's a great chart I ran across that describes what blooms when and other information.  It lists the normal start and stop month.

The link for the page is here:

Nectar Chart

I tried to post it here, but I don't know enough about formatting to make it fit.

Odd Comb That Just Won't Behave

When I installed the nucs, one of them had a large chunk of comb they had built.  I tried laying it outside the entrance to the hive, but they didn't leave it.  Afraid of hurting the queen, I put a shim on top of an inner cover and put the comb on there, hoping they'd go down into the hive in a day or two.

Went into the hives today and the come was bigger and had brood.  There was also brood down in the hive.  That queen really gets around!  So I gently hive-tooled the comb off of the inner cover and pressed it onto the frame in position #8 (it was bare plastic frame).  I hope they take care of it all and they are happy now.

As an aside, I tried out my big magnet in my suit pocket and it holds the hive tool in the "always ready" position. It's kind of hard to get off sometimes, but it's a strong magnet.



The good news is that all four hives are buzzing happily along, building comb and laying eggs and drinking syrup.  I am hoping the temperatures will straighten out (it was down to 40F last night) and they'll start taking care of business making comb, bees, and honey.

Installing Nucs in the Rain

Friday, Paul Barris, the WRCB TV weatherman said we were in for unheard of amounts of rain this weekend.

I worked all night Friday night. I got a call Saturday morning around 10:00 from Holcomb's Garden Supply in Chattanooga that my two nucs were in and could I come pick them up.  Luckily for me, Dad said he'd go down there and pick them up for me.  I was able to go back to sleep for a little while.

I got up around 1:00 in the afternoon and started thinking about what all I needed to do to get the nucs hived.  Looked outside and it was pouring rain.  Oh boy.

Got two rubber mats to set the hives on, found some cinder blocks (only two per hive, I'll have to get four more next week), bottom boards, deeps, frames, telescoping tops, feeders.  Couldn't find any entrance reducers.  I've got to come up with a better way to keep track of supplies and inventory!  I'll try to swing by the Co-op Monday and pick some up.  I've put robber screens on as an interim measure.

Dad showed up with the bees.  Two waxy-cardboard-type 5-frame nucs.  One nuc had 3-frames and one had four frames.  I didn't get to do a detailed inspection because of the cool, rainy weather.  But there wasn't any queen cages, so I assume that they're working nucs.  Hopefully I'll be able to peek in sometime this coming week and see.  There was some burr comb built in the nuc boxes with bees all over it, so I put that wax in the hives.  I didn't want to take a chance of missing the queen.  I'll have to clean that up when I can get in there.

I put top feeders on the hives and filled all the feeders up yesterday.  It may be a couple of days before it stops raining and the bees can get out.

Hopefully everything will be ok.

Nucs before installation:

Nuc leaned up against the hive for stragglers to walk in:



Now I have four hives!