Misbeehaving

I did a full inspection of the hive today hoping to be able to put on my honey super, but the bees are acting strange again. They seem to have mostly moved out of the bottom deep and moved into the top deep (where I found Queenie today).

Upon inspecting the lower deep, I found that some of the partially drawn frames that I moved down there (to try to get the bees to move up to the top deep) are still only partially drawn. Some of the older frames that were fully drawn are empty and abandoned. Overall, it looks like there is only activity on 3 or 4 of the 10 frames in the bottom deep.

The top deep is much more active, but the bees were drawing the extra thick comb again, but only on one frame. That was the frame were I found Queenie (thank goodness, because I did not see very many eggs anywhere - there was a lot of honey and a lot of capped brood and a lot of empty cells). Here is a picture of the very strange frame (Queenie is on the bottom right, the thick comb is on the right and along the whole top of the frame):

Unfortunately since the bees aren't filling up the hive space they have now, I cannot put on a honey super. This means that I am not going to get any honey this year :( I think this is probably a combination of me inspecting them too often and them not getting enough sun. Maybe I'll try moving them next year.

Also, Brandon helped me out a lot with this inspection. He loosened the frames and separated them while I just picked them up and looked at them. The inspection went much more quickly this time, I got through the whole bottom deep and all but two frames in the top (then the bees started buzzing my veil again, I am trying to be very gentle, but they seem a bit grouchy when I leave the hive open too long).

All Closed Up

Last night I closed up the bees so that someone could come today to trim the tree above the bees. I used a mesh screen and my mouse guard (to hold the screen in place) to close the bees inside. Here is what the hive looked like on Friday after the tree guys left:

Here is a close up on the closed entrance, a few bees that didn't make it in before curfew last night are trying to get inside:

As I opened the bees, they burst out (I bet it was pretty hot in there):

I also fed the bees, since all of their sugar water was gone. Here you can see that a bunch of bees were up in the feeder trying to find a way out of the hive:

Feeding the Bees

I asked Chery about leaving the gap open (between the top deep and the hive top) and she said the bees would patch it up, so I went ahead and put the feeder on. Below is a picture of the hive top feeder, it has two wells to put sugar water in and it has a mesh screen in hte middle. The bees have to come up through the middle to get to the sugar water. Since they have to climb on the mesh, they don't drown like they do on the board feeder (where they can access the sugar water more directly).

Here is a picture of the gap that the bees are going to have to fill (I don't think you can see the bees in the photo, but when I look through the gap I can see the bees walking around):

Here is a picture of what the hive looks like now (a little taller now, I left the inner cover off to the side because I don't need it anymore. You usually put it on so that the outer cover can easily be removed, but since the bees no longer have access to the outer cover anymore I don't need the inner cover):

There's a Hole in my Hive

The bees finally seem to be occupying the top deep. There seems to be comb drawn on 6 of the 9 frames I peeked at in the top deep, though I didn't do a very thurough inspection of the top box because the bees were being a little grouchy again. I need to try to get through my inspections more quickly so the bees don't get as angry towards the end.

I removed the board feeder that I had in the top deep (which takes the space of one of the regular frames) and wanted to put on the hive top feeder, but noticed that my top deep is not really level in the back (pictured below). You can see that the side of the deep is a little bit (1/8" to 1/4") higher than the back wall of the deep.

Looking at how the inner cover sits on top of the deep, you can see that there is a hole all the way along the back edge of the deep:

I was a bit worried about leaving the hive open like that, so I didn't put on the hivetop feeder this time (but I did leave the board feeder out. The bees have plenty of pollen and nectar right now, so I am not worried about leaving them without food. I have been feeding them extra so that they can build honey comb faster). I'll send an email to Cheryl at Bear Foot Honey to see if that is ok, or if I have to repair the deep. I know that bees fill holes that are smaller than 3/8", but this seems like a pretty long skinny hole for them to be pathching up.

Another realization that I am coming to is that I might be checking the bees too often. Cheryl recomended not opening the hive more than once every 10 days. I've been opening the hive every 7 to 14 days, and every time you open the hive, it sets the bees back a few days (because opening the hive and smoking them is very disruptive). I'll probably wait a bit before opening them up again, because it doesn't look like they are building honey comb fast enough for me to harvest anything this year :(

Movin' On Up!

Finally! The bees are moving upstairs! The bees now seem to be drawing comb on the blank frames upstairs and just generally milling around. Here is a picture of what it looks like when I opened the top of the hive:

This is what the bottom deep looks like when I take the top deep off (notice how many more bees are wandering around, the top box should look more like this):

And still no Queenie this time, but I actually saw a whole frame filled with eggs up in the top deep! So even Queenie has moved upstairs.

The bees were extra grouchy today though, I was making a bit more noise than usual (I accidentally made some cracking noises when using my hive tool to break apart the frames. The bees hate that). They buzzed my veil a few times and stung my thumb once. This time around I think the sting was less severe.

Just a Checkup

Nothing exciting this time around, just a regular checkup. I've been having trouble getting the bees to move upstairs. I moved two frames upstairs a while back, but as soon as all of the bees hatched out of their cells, they seemed to vacate and move back downstairs, leaving empty comb up top. Here is a picture of one of empty frames they left upstairs:

I tried moving another frame upstairs, so hopefully the bees take a hint after this. You can see the darker colored frames are the ones from downstairs that I've moved up (2 from last time, 1 with bees on it that I just moved up there):

The other thing that I did this time is fill the buckets around the base posts with vinegar. Apparently vinegar removes the scent of ant trails (which is why I have the buckets there, to keep the ants out of the feeders).

This is also the first time that I have checked the hive and I haven't seen Queenie. I saw some eggs down in the bottom box, so nothing to be alarmed about. As the hive gets bigger, it will be more and more difficult to find her.

Bee Movie

Not the one with Jerry Seinfeld. Brandon took lots of video of my last inspection and edited it all together on his new toy (iPad2). This video shows:

• Me taking a frame out of the hive.
• The comb that the bees have been able to draw on an empty frame over the course of a week.
• Queenie (the queen bee with a white dot on her torso) walking around on a frame.
• Me inspecting a frame.
  
• Baby bees hatching out of their cells (you have to look really hard).
• Me putting a frame back into the hive.