Added frames

Called George and told him the situation. He kindly came by and trade some of our empty frames for some of his drawn out frames. He helped us add the new frames. We added the second brood box on with some empty frames and some with capped syrup. Found the queen. She is still in the hive. Put on 2 jars of sugar syrup. Now we'll continue to feed and hopefully the queen will begin laying again. We'll check on them next weekend if the weather is nice.

Keown orchards and honeybees!

Honeybees and more honeybees! Oh my!! Keown's orchard has 12 hives. Very strong and active. Maybe next year ours will do better. But after listening to the head bee man Ken (ma inspector) we realize that our brood box is honey bound (sugar syrup in our case). What does that mean, the bees have started to store all the sugar syrup we have been feeding them and now there is no place for the queen to lay more eggs. Our numbers are very low. I worry that the cluster will be too small to survive the winter. Ken is managing these hives and he is going to spin out some of the honey in some of these hives to give the queens more empty frames to lay in. Well what should we do? Because our frames don't have honey but sugar syrup we need to just replace some of the frames with empty drawn out frames. We know just who to call, George.

There is a lot of robbing going on. The goldenrod came early and is just about done. There is little to no pollen or nectar left anywhere for the bees to gather so they begin robbing other hives. Stealing honey from other hives. That's also why you'll notice many of us aren't wearing any protective clothing today. The day turn out beautiful. This was the last outdoor meeting for the season. Glad we were able to make it.

Goldenrod & sedum

The goldenrod is almost done. But still very few honeybees in this area. The goldenrod and sedum that is still blooming is bumblebee heaven. Well we'll see plenty of honeybees on Sat at the last outdoor meeting.

Look what is living next door...

Smorgasbord

This is this weeks smorgasbord for all kinds of nectar and pollen loving insects.

Honeybees, hornets, yellow jackets, flies, other bees and these blue/black guys were there too....

Not much brood...

Moving day?....Night

It's been awhile since I posted...that's because we've been very busy moving. Moving is a big event to begin with BUT now we have a bee hive to move! How hard can it be. Wait till its dark and everyone is in and go. Well the morning of the move I use a large piece of screen between the inner cover and the outer cover. It tucked it all under the inner cover, blocking the hole on the top and in the edge of the cover. I then duct taped the inner cover to the hive and replaced the outer cover. After work of course now we have to wait for it to get dark. I kept going out to check what the girls were doing. Slowly the girls made their way into the hive. Finally around 8:30 I checked again. Still a few guards at the door. So I gently blew on them and....they moved in! I did it again and they move further in. Well, I kept doing it, they stay inside the opening and I put a piece of screen over the opening and taped it in place. I taped the sides of the hive to hold everything together. Ok... time to load the hive onto the truck. Thank goodness the hive is only 1 brood box. And were off. We arrived without incident. Unload the hive onto the new stand. At the new location we put the hive up on blocks, there tends to be more wildlife here.

milkweed...

Lots of milkweed everywhere. One of the honeybee's favorite plants. But butterflies, ants, bumblebees and many more insects also love this sweet smelling flower. But alas it is short lived. Many of the blooms have gone by. The bee balm in Ann's garden ( my mom) is starting to bloom and then it will be the snow on the mountain. The queen is busy at work. Can you find her in the photos below? The baby girl on my hand was very curious and walked on my hand, my arm and back to my hand the entire time we were looking at the frames. The girls have been drawing out comb on the next to the outer frames, but only one side of them. Maybe next weekend we can add the second brood box... maybe. At least it's not raining. The sun is shining and it was 81 today. Fabulous!

looking good....

Everything is looking good. They are storing syrup and pollen. We have many more bees. Plenty of larvae and capped brood. And a lot more eggs. We've had two bee-u-ti-ful sunny days. Saturday on my morning walk I came across a patch of milkweed teeming with honeybees! Finally! Honeybees somewhere besides the hive in my backyard. Now...are they my girls? Or do they belong down the street in the other direction? I believe both. As I watch them so leave heading towards home and some are heading in the opposite direction. So we got the smoker going and checked on the girls back at the hive. Everything is looking good. They are storing syrup and pollen. We have many more bees. Plenty of larvae and capped brood. And a lot more eggs. They are starting to build out the other frames and we saw our queen which always makes us very happy. But we still need to keep feeding sugar syrup. So we filled both jars and put the cover back on. I'll check the jars Monday night. Hopefully the weather will turn for the better and start staying warm and sunny.

making syrup

The head bee man Ken ( MA Bee Inspector) stopped by to check our hive. The hive is weak but growing. BUT with all this nasty weather and small number of bees, they have been eating what syrup and nectar they had stored. There is nothing left. No food for babies. No food...no wax...no drawing out empty frames. So we have to start feeding sugar syrup immediately. I had a pint left from earlier this spring. So we put a jar on right away. I made more syrup and will have to keep a check on the jar. Ken said start feeding and they'll start drawing out that comb on those empty frames giving the queen more room to lay her eggs. So glad Ken stopped by,(thank you Ken) we never gave it a thought to start feeding again being inexperienced. Many other beekeepers have already started feeding their hives.

here comes the sun....

Finally! Some sun! Our girls are doing well. Many more have hatched. The queen is still working. Many more eggs have been layed and larvae in all stages. Lots of brood! YES! Alot more activity at the entrance, coming in with lots of pollen! Now we wait for the new bees to start drawing out the comb on those last few frames. Then we can put on the second brood box. Makes me very happy!
Know what else makes me happy? My new car...the Nissan Cube! Totally awesome. Very luxurious! And trusty assistant bought me new fancy hubcaps for my 'new rig'.

assistant in training

new bees!

We have babies! Here is our lovely Queen... she is on the far left. See how her body is longer than the others. Now in the other photo towards the bottom, the bees that are very light in color are the newly hatched bees. The first video shows the queen, she's the largest walking in the center of the screen. Now the other video is blurry, again. After we check on the girls, the weather turned cool and rainy. Sunday wasn't any better. I will try to get a better video next time. But, if you watch carefully towards the center right you will see a new bee hatching. The one of the bees that keeps stepping on her is also a newly hatched bee. Click on the photos to enlarge them.

brood capped over

The girls have capped the larvae. There are more eggs and larvae. Now we wait. Maybe Wed night if the weather is good we can check and see if any of the brood are hatching. We'll have new girls soon. The photo above right is the girls making a bridge between frames when we took out another frame. I need more practice with the videos. Might have to get a tri-pod.

in search of honey bees

These are some of the flowers on my walk route. There are large patches of them. Not a single honey bee to be found. I only saw bumble bees in the rhododendron bush.