Hi All,
I did my first hive check last weekend, although I
didn't quite
finish... It was basically a wellness check to make
sure the queen
was doing well, but I didn't check for varroa mites (I
have been
meaning to cut some screen and make a bee
shaker).
Here's the hive story: I got a 5 frame nuc from the
carolina bee
company on 6/15. Since then I've pumped 12.5 gallons
of sugar syrup
in. They started in a deep body have, but I added a
medium on 7/21
when Don Hopkins came and did an inspection.
Here's
my bee log:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ajxus2rq3XxPdDVzT3pLOGNmMUlfN2lXYzB5U0JNQVE&hl=en_USHere
are my notes from Saturday:
"top super- built up except for frames 1/10.
Killed 2 hive beetles.
Only got through half of deep super before I
ran out of time- looked
good? Lots of larvae (old and very young in
frames 3-4). Removed some
wax from bridges between frames. See
photos. Didn't see queen. "
I went through each frame in the
medium and made it through have of
the deep body before I ran out of
smoke and my family came home, but
there were plenty of little tiny
larvae in the deep body frames I
looked at. I pulled out some wax
that they were bridging with- hope
that was the right thing to
do.
I also made a movie of it (I set a camera on a tripod and had it
take
photos every 5 sec; then I used picasa (google's free photo
software)
to make a time lapse movie out of
it:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/zym2V4ENbmKPpLAmho8tdw?feat=directlink
I
have photos of pretty much every frame too if seeing those would
help
with advice... Any pointers/advice would be welcome. Is it
time
to stop feeding them sugar syrup, or should I continue? They
only
have a couple of medium frames left to fill out...
(there
were 2 smokers because I got my grandfather's old smoker from
one of his
sheds and wanted to see if it still worked/was any
different- it's pretty
much the same except it doesn't have the safety
cage).
Thanks,
Blair
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