Last Wednesday Bees

I'm still catching up with posting since my vacation!

Now that I'm back home and my daughter is in Shakespeare camp, I can get back to my bees.






I started the day at the Sheahans, everything is looking good

Honey is being made.            

 And they're drawing out the new comb.

Here's the yellow queen, I've just noticed that she's clipped!

I took out the frames from the extra honey super, and added a syrup feeder on top.

 

The wild hive is looking good too! Here's honey!

And drawing out new comb.

These are the alternating frames, you can see which ones are old and new. =)

They're making queen cups, but no new queen cells... Yet!

OK, this is *almost* done, but no egg is inside. Thank goodness.

Lots and lots of new queen cups... Are they kidding?

I just like the way this photo came out, all focused on the hive below. =)

I added a syrup feeder to this hive too, and and empty super around it.

Next up are the Walker's hives.

Looking OK.

This queen cell is ripped open from the top, I think the queen found one that she'd missed!

Yes! New larvae, and brood.

One of the girls must have brushed up to the queen after she was painted, this worker has a touch of red on her shoulder. =) Can you see her?

And some sweet, sweet nectar! Almost honey... Almost.

OK, now this is a new divided 10-frame hive, I took a class on overwintering nucs on June 30th. We were all sent home with this special divided hive, and 2 marked queens. So, I had to pull a few more frames of brood and eggs and nectar. But they all look alright now.

The divider in the middle of the bottom board is screwed in, (Thanks, Dad!) the divider in the hive body slides into a groove, but can be removed if I need to make it into a single 10-frame deep. (I hope that never happens!)

The 2, 5-frame inner covers are made of some kind of masonry board. If I remember the name, I'll update the blog. *scratches head* Don't hold your breath!
It has a front and side entrance routed in.

The hives weren't very busy on the outside, but they look OK inside.

Oops! I dripped a little nectar! Sorry, girls! Thanks for cleaning that up for me!

They had the job done in no time!

This is the other side. Very quiet.

 Looks OK inside.

Oh, dear! queen cells. Well, I didn't see either new queen. So, I'm hoping that they'll sort themselves out. I did remove both empty queen cages, so they should be in there, somewhere.

Good luck girls!

Early July, Bees

These are the bees at New Pond Farm.

I couldn't meet Gabrielle on Monday because of the tornado, but I did get to check on them on Wednesday. (7-03-13) In order, these are the Flanigan hive, Gabrielles hive, and the Taylors hive.

 Gabrielles and the Flanigans look crowded outside. Maybe it's just the heat? Looking inside, I see it's crowded there too. They have lots of nectar and  honey, plenty of pollen, but not a lot of brood or babies.

The brood I do see is mostly drones.

Any experienced beekeepers out there? Do bees usually make less babies when it's hot and they haven't got a lot of nectar coming in to the hive? It makes sense to me.

This was lovely to see:

It's the first full frame of honey that I've seen in all my hives, and New Pond's hives too! This was in Gabrielles hive. I can't wait until Monday to show her!

All's Well That Ends Well

New Pond Farm is hosting Shakespeare Summer Theatre camp. They booked several tickets to go to Boscobel to watch "All's Well That Ends Well". We joined them for an evenings entertainment. =D

Sure Mom, go ahead, take this picture!

I can't believe you took that picture!

Mom, STOP! *eyeroll*

Tee-hee!

Boscobel is a historic house that has been made into a museum. It's just beautiful there!

The show was fun, the actors were great! I took a picture before the show, but I wasn't supposed to! Sorry, actors! I paid attention for the show, I swear!

End of June, Bees

Since I was on vacation in my hometown, I was able to take care of my bees as usual.

These are the splits I made from my original two hives. These hives are at the Walkers' house.
Everything looks good so far. I put the nuc of bees into it's own deep super.

 And I found and marked both new queens! I'm so excited, this is the first time I've ever done splits, and they look pretty good, so far.

I did make a mess of the paint job though. My red paint pen was very runny, and my gloves are covered in pink paint too.

I hope it doesn't bother the bees too much. I really hope I haven't messed anything up for my queens!

This is what they look like now:

Later, I went to check on the hives that I pulled the splits from.

Not too over-crowded, check!

Making some wonderful honey, check!

And, starting to draw out the new comb, check!

I alternated the new comb with the drawn comb, we'll have to see how that goes.

Vacation

Not too far from home for me, many miles away for the family I was house-sitting for. =) (And dog-sitting!)

The house was once part of a school building. It was cut up into three pieces in the 1950's and turned into houses. The family that I was working for has put a lot of work into updating the house and adding on a garage and a pool.

We loved the pool! I spent some time every day in the pool, except the Monday that we had a tornado... I didn't swim during the tornado. (But I thought about it!)

Louie is a dog that I've watched before, at my own house. He's been with Jack, and they love to pay with each other! So, we had a play-date for the puppies.

And that's where I've been for the last two weeks.