We had a huge rain (3.5 inches in one hour) two nights ago and it has rained off and on since then. Yesterday, I noticed a few dead bees on the bottom board in Hive 2 and today I noticed a few more in Hive 1.
The most disturbing thing was the brood that I found out on the bottom board – partially formed brood. These had clearly died during their incubation. I am guessing this is due to the rain and hope this is only a minor setback.
Wow. I would have never thought that those little bees would make me so nervous. Now I can see why they recommend that new beekeepers open the hive every week for a month, to get used to it!
I took another peek at my bees this past Sunday, around 6 PM or so. It was a nice day (perhaps in the 80’s) with a slight breeze. The sun was shining, although we (the Bees and I!) were in the shade at this time of the day (which is why I chose it.) The goal today was to locate the queens.
On Hive 1, which I had opened a lot last week, I immediately saw the queen through the top board. She was crawling around on one of the middle frames and then took a move to the inside. I decided not to bother these bees anymore (although, in retrospect, I think they were bothering me, which is the real reason I decided not to go further!) Regardless, since I had opened them last weekend and moved them about, I decided that this weekend’s goal was done.
On Hive 2, which I only glanced at last week (without removing any frames), I took her apart. Once, the bees appeared to be a bit agitated (they were eyeballing me from the top of one of the frames), so I hit them with my new smoker (which I lit for this examination.) They made a huge buzzing racket and then retreated back into the hive.
This gave me the time to begin taking the frames out. These bees were still mainly on the four frames that I had purchased. The outermost frame contained capped honey, nectar and pollen. The second one that I looked at had a TON of capped brood in it, but still no queen. Finally, on the next frame, I found the little beeotch. Of course, she immediately started crawling around on all of the most dangerous spots (where I could roll her when I put the frame back). There was a lot of capped brood here too, so all was good. I put the hive back together and we were done.
Mission accomplished in Week 2, although I need to give these hives a much better look next week. I want to know exactly what is on each and every frame so that I can start tracking it a bit better.
May 24, 2009
Well, it is 8 and 10 days, respectively, since I picked up my two hives from a local beekeeper here in Varina, Virginia. This weekend, I cracked them open to have a look! Although I had initially decided to wait a couple of weeks, further reading indicated that every week should be my schedule, starting out. I need to get the hang of checking out my bees in these early days! After about 4 weeks (towards the end of June), I should drop back to about once a month or so.
Regardless, I decided to go without any of the gear that I purchased and was not stung a single time! The local beekeeper shoots for gentle bees, so I am hopeful of getting an easy-going group of gals that will not hassle me too much.
But, there was a problem. One of the hives had the center frames spaced out a bit and the bees were extending the comb a bit further then I’d like. Add to this the fact that the monkeys were actively filling the outer (upper, in this case) cells and I had a very hard time getting the frames back in.
I did, however, manager to pull out one frame (of four) covered with bees, but that is as far as I got. I should have brought my smoker!
Oh well, we’ll see how it goes next year.
Hive One
Arrived 5/15
Started with four frames
First check on 5/24
Hive Two
Arrived 5/17
Started with four frames
First check on 5/24
I decided not to pull the frames out of this one. The issue with the stuck frames in Hive One was enough to have me waiting for the next weekend, when I will have smoke!
Yesterday, I picked up my first hive of bees from Tom Fifer, a local bee master in Varina. From a Nuc, he transferred 4 frames of bees into my hive and showed me the queen with a green dot on her thorax. We left my Hive at his house until around 8 pm (when all of the bees had presumably returned home from foraging.)
I strapped the whole thing together with a ratchet and taped some hardware cloth in the entrance before I transported them back to my house (Heather accompanied me on the trip back to our house.)
Today, I got up to watch them and noticed only a little activity. The bees were coming and going in ones and twos; no guard bees were evident (by me, anyway) and several seemed to be scanning the hive sides on occasion.
Later, around 2:30 pm, I returned from a civic event to see much more activity. Workers were coming in and out at a rate of four or five every few seconds. They were definitely ‘making hay’ and I was encouraged. There was still no real evidence of guard bees. Either they were flying about the entrance or my hive has not gotten organized enough in these early days to have some bees to fill out those posts! I might open them up and take a look tomorrow.
