We spent the last 5 or 6 weeks visiting family and friends in the North East. Jim’s family, and my father are in NY and my kids, grand kids and great grand kids are in VT. We used the Buick for transportation while up there…put almost 1100 miles on it.
We had a great time. Lots of great grandkids to play with. They get big so fast.
Spent time with Tom and Regina and their new project….sheep. They have a great setup going. Lots of fields to rotate them in.
Had a good time with Jim’s cousin Arlene and her husband Dick. They run a Senior Club, “The Silver Fox”. A great place for seniors who can’t stay home alone while care givers are working, or for those who just don’t want to stay home alone. Lots of things to do, and a staff that is fantastic.
I was concerned that my Honeybees might decide to leave home…but they didn’t…at least not all of them did. Don’t know if they cast off a swarm while we were gone or not. I had the smaller hive set up just incase some wanted another place to live..but it is still empty.
The stand is set in concrete. I had a few extra tiles so put them down to keep the grass down. The ratchet straps hold it to the stand in case of large critters or hurricanes.
The big box at the bottom (called a deep) is brood chamber. The super above it ( a medium) was built out with comb. I hope it also becomes a brood chamber. The super above it (also a medium) will be for their stored honey. We wont touch that. If there is anything in the top super we will take some or all of it for ourselves. We hope to leave them enough to feed themselves thru the winter. If they get low on stores and we have a few jars of honey…we’ll feed it back to them.
It has been pretty hot and the bees have been fanning the entrance to help cool the hive. I have a jar of water with beads in the tray to keep the bees from drowning. It is a short trip for them to get water for the fanners.
I read they put water on the fanners wings to help cool. I do have a birdbath within 15 ft. but this way is a much shorter travel, and they put a lot of miles on those little wings.
It’s a bit tricky for those foragers returning….trying to get past those fanning.
There are several drones in this photo. They are the larger bees with the big black heads (eyes, I believe). I see 5 right in the center of the picture at the top of the entrance.
I took the top off and checked the super….no comb or honey in it yet. Will look again next week, and also check the super below it. I need to put a Queen excluder below the top one. The Queen excluder looks like a metal grate. The openings are large enough for the workers to go thru but not the Queen. That prevents her from laying eggs in the super we want to extract honey from.
New at this…hope it works out the way we expect it to. Right now there are a lot of palms blooming. Hopefully they will fill up that top super….or at least a few frames.
It looks like they are doing well. I had a swarm early in June but now that hive has just the right amount of bees. But I do hope someone captured that swarm since those were the best bees. I could tell in May they were going to swarm since there were 4 queen cells. I wanted them to replace the queen since she was 4 years old but should have split the hive at that point to save the bees. I just harvested honey to give them more space, thinking they would not swarm then will do differently next time.
ReplyDeleteHappy beekeeping!