Only a simple observation this evening. The weather was in the high 80’s with a bit of cloud cover and not much wind here in Varina, Virginia.

Hive 1

As expected, this hive is really active. They are eating up the sugar water like there is no tomorrow and the little girls are coming in, left and right, loaded down with pollen. I hope to see some definite evidence of pollen storage this weekend. There were a couple of interesting points, including the fact that a few bees continued to buz around towards the bottom of the hive now. The screened bottom board must make the robbers think that there’s a quick entrance to a bit of honey down there. Either that, or some of my learning-impaired bees are trying to get back in the hive through this egress. Regardless, no one can get in and the hive continues work hard. The other oddity were the several bees that were just standing on the outside of the screen, not moving at all. I’ve seen them do this before, after I put the robber screen up, and have no idea what they are doing. Maybe just taking a breather, which I don’t hold against them.

Either way, I continue to believe that the sugar syrup and robber screen have made a huge difference with this hive. My main concern is the Wax Moth, which I know are in there. I will be doing a pretty thorough inspection this weekend to see if the bees are keeping them in check, which they surely must be.

Hive 2

Again, as expected, some activity but not as much as I have in Hive 1. Regardless, these bees are taking the syrup and I do see a lot of the workers coming in, laden down with pollen. It is clearly good pollen times in East Richmond, Virginia or at least in my yard here in Varina. There are not as many bees coming and going and they are taking much longer to eat the syrup. I hope to get some MegaBee in the mail shortly and will use that to give them a boost.