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.

Not much brood...

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.

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'.

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.

larvae, oh yay!

Finally! We have larvae and more eggs! It looks like all different stages of larvae. The hive is weak. As I was trying to get the photo of the dark orange pollen on an incoming worker we saw two bees come out of the hive and die.
The bee inspector said we had some tracheal mites....
BUT we have had these bees with no replacements
since 4/26, 36 days. Now we have no idea how old they actually are. During honey flow they live 6 weeks.

we have a problem

There are no eggs! No brood anywhere! The bee inspector checked the hive and it's weak. It appears the queen is lame. She is dragging the right side of her body, and her abdomen is not swollen at all. He has called the man for a new queen.