On May 28,2010

I am posting this late. We returned home from a vacation in the UP. I noticed something was not right in one of our hives... the foundationless one. Posted the following on Bee Source:

Got back from a week away and noticed right away that something wasn't right with one of our hives. Took a look inside and discovered that we have laying workers. A few capped drone cells and lots of cells with multiple eggs.
Now, what to do? Is it worth it to try to replace the queen? Is there anything I can do to make them accept her? Or should I shake it and try to find a nuc? If I can't find a nuc or a package, then I would like to at least try to requeen before I give up on it for the year. This is our first year of beekeeping and I figure it is all a learning experience.

Any advice would be much appreciated!

I ended up shaking the queenless hive in front of the queenright hive. The next day I put the deep from that hive onto the queenright hive. Now we have one hive with 3 deeps. Still feeding.

June 16, 2010

Started the day with 3 deeps and the entrance reducer on the larger setting. Still had sugar water on.

Reversed the 2 bottom boxes (both with Pierco plastic frames), and put our first honey super on (with Pierco plastic frames, white). No more feeding. Took the entrance reducer off. Everything is looking good. Lots of brood. Capped honey. No swarm or supercedure cells.

I hated to mess with them, but I knew I needed to learn from them. I can't see through the boxes so I torn their world apart and put it back together.

I don't really care about getting honey for ourselves this year. I just didn't want to go on vacation and leave them with no room. The top two boxes were at least 80% drawn out. The bottom box was only 70%. Now it is the middle box so I hope they start drawing it out more.

At any rate, I think they should have enough to get by until we get back from vacation.

Did our second hive inspection today. The hive with the Pierco foundation is doing well, but the second box we put on has a lot of cross comb. I think they are confused about where they are supposed to build. Otherwise, things are looking good. They were in a much better mood today, for certain. I didn't get stung either :)

The foundationless hive isn't ready for a second box yet. Looks like a lot of brood has hatched and they are cleaning the cells out. I believe in the end they might do much better. We shall see. They seem to be taking their time but being much more organized, if that makes sense.

Will post pictures later.

It has been fairly cold and rainy the past few days. I am a little worried about the bees. I hope they are okay. There were a few dead bees outside the hive a few days ago when this weather came in.

First Hive Inspection!

We opened both hives for the first time today. 23 days after hiving them. We started at 5pm. Some weather was supposed to be moving in but it was actually closer than I had thought. Wind was fairly calm. Smoker was working well for the first time.

We took a look in the hive with foundation first. There were a few bees that seemed to be a little aggressive. Maybe it was my nervousness or that of my husband's. Or it could have been the weather moving in? Seven frames were completely drawn out. I didn't pull out every frame. The first 3 had nothing. The 4th one had uncapped honey. The next one had uncapped brood and the next one had some drone brood. We took the frame of uncapped honey and put it in the middle of a new deep and put it on. Also decided to open the entrance reducer a little. Had my first sting from this hive today.

The second hive is the one that has no foundation. It was about halfway drawn out. This hive also had a third to a half of syrup water left in one bucket. The other hive had none, pretty much. I pulled one frame to inspect then put it back. I decided not to mess with them too much. I There was no cross comb that I could see. Looks like the hive is about 50% drawn out. These bees seemed to be more docile. Will plan on giving them another week or so and then maybe adding another deep.

First Hive Inspection