Two Month Report

It's been two months since I first installed my bees in Beelandia, and all seems well in the two hives. It was a fine day to inspect the bees, after a rather stormy Sunday caused a postponement. The weather was sunny, a temperature around 70 degrees.

Bee Glad... was booming with activity. Following the suggestion in Furgala, Spivak, and Reuter's book, Beekeeping in Northern Climates, I had added a third deep box since the bees were at work on all frames in the second. As the photo above shows, they aren't too keen on the plastic drone I've installed for IPM purposes, building comb only here and there. However, they "love" building in the foundationless frames. I did have to trim some cross-comb. Before I closed up the hive, I dusted and brushed the frames with powdered sugar.

Metpropolis was even stronger with the bees building nice straight comb on 18 of the 21 frames now in that hive. My patient approach to its cross-comb problems seems to be paying off. The bees are working with me, slowly but surely "changing their ways". I dusted every comb containing bees with powdered sugar as well (using an old smoker as a "puffer") and did only a bit of trimming on comb.

The bees seem to be bringing in alot of pollen and there was much stored away in both hives. My guess is that most of this is coming from white clover, a few basswood trees, and my neighbor's coreopsis bed. My own narrow leafed milkweed and borage are very close to blooming and should provide the bees with a small amount of pollen and nectar in the future.

Week 7: It's Such a Perfect Day

I did the week seven inspection a day early. The day was perfect, I think, for both bees and humanity. The temperature was in the 80s, bright and sunny with a magnificent, soft breeze. I've been finding that as a somewhat urban beekeeper (I hesitate to call Winona urban!), it is quite difficult to figure out just what the bees are foraging, though foraging they are. I've seen them exploring white clover, but anything else is just a guess. There are just too many ornamentals growing in the neighborhood to exactly know what type of pollen and nectar they are bringing in.

Bee Glad... was thriving. When I opened up the top box, there were a few hundred bees scurrying around the top of the bars. Unfortunately, one of their number decided to sting me on the index finger as I took the inner cover off. Not a very good way to start the inspection but all went reasonably well after that. The bees have been building comb on all the frames, except of course, the green plastic brood comb frame I am using for varroa control. The bottom box was booming with bees. Unfortunately, it also contained two frames stuck together with cross comb. I did some trimming of comb in that box but will wait until the bees fully move to the top box to really split and trim those frames apart. I am convinced that my cross comb problems in Bee Glad... were the result of not having the starter strips firmly secured to the frame. The bees were tearing the strips out and then had nothing to guide their drawing. I am now using waxed Popsicle sticks glued into the frames instead. If the comb drawing in the top box is any indication, this looks like it works much better.

Metpropolis, as usual, is simply a pleasure to work. I handled one cross comb problem in this hive rather leisurely and the bees didn't mind at all. Also, I cut a section of comb off one bar that was primarily filled with drone comb, as an effort to do some IPM against varroa. (Next week, I will do a varroa count on both hives) There was plenty of brood in all stages, and the bees have begun capping honey on the few bars they have dedicated to it. I added a bar and closed the hive up.

Monta did take photos of this inspection and I will upload them sometime during the week, along with a photo of a spider who feasts on an occasional bee from Bee Glad...

Fourth Week Inspection

The fourth inspection of the Beelandia apiary took place on a sunny, slightly windy day at around 2 in the afternoon. The temperature was hovering in the high 70s and low 80s. Dandelions are still blooming, along with crabapple, apple and other trees in the neighborhood.

I opened up Bee Glad..., the Langstroth hive, to see a good 70% drawn comb in the hive. The frames contained capped brood (mostly worker but some drone as well in the 3rd and eighth frames). The brood pattern was good. Other cells in the brood area contained eggs and larvae in different stages of development. I even saw one bee chewing her way out from a capped cell. There was a good band of stored pollen around in the brood nest area, some capped honey at the tops of some frames. No sign of disease either. In all the hive looks healthy.

I decided to place another deep box on top of Bee Glad.... I took the first frame, filled with pollen and uncapped honey from the bottom deep and placed it into the second box. Following the suggestion of Randy Oliver , I placed a green plastic drone frame into this box. As a part of my integrated pest management program, this frame will be pulled in a month or so when it contains capped drone brood cells. Hopefully, it will attract a good portion of any varroa mites that might be in the colony which can be disposed with before the mites increase their population to the point of damaging the bees. Before closing up the hive, I also did a powdered sugar shake.
Metpropolis, the Kenyon top bar hive, was also thriving. Like in Bee Glad..., combs contained brood in all stages, and mostly worker capped cells. The bars in front and to the right of the entrance were drawn straight with no cross-comb at all. To the left, however, there are three bars with cross-comb problems. I did some trimming of one, separated some of the others. I added an empty bar between the middle most straight comb and the first bar with cross-comb, in order to eventually rotate out the cross-combed bars to the edge of the hive. These will eventually be removed. I added two new bars with starter strip to each end of the hive.



The trimming of the cross-comb was done on a Bar Cradle which Monta built for me.

I did a powdered sugar shake on Metpropolis also, using an old smoker to "puff" sugar up through the hardware cloth at the bottom of the hive.