Updates from Higganum Hillside Honey; the Good, the Bad, and the Funny.

Since my last post, I have inspected the majority of my hives. On Sunday June 8th, we inspected hives a Burr Farm. I enlisted help of my husband to do the heavy lifting. BF#1 looks good and had plenty of signs of a laying queen, so I was happy with that. There was some weight in the honey supers as well. Hive BF#2 didn’t have the activity that I hoped for. I didn’t see any laying from a queen in the hive even though I saw bees marching within the hive in my last inspection. Since there were plenty of worker bees in that hive, I made the choice to purchase a queen bee.

We returned home and check on hive #4 on the same day. Since the swarm on May 11th, I wanted to be sure that there was an active queen in that hive. I have one honey super on that hive, which was light. I saw larva and capped brood in that hive. That discovery made me happy.

I receive my queen bee on June 11th for the install in BF#2. That was a little bit of an adventure. I got my jacket with veil, two gloves, smoker, bee tool bag, sugar water (if needed), some spare frames, some other odds an ends, and of course my new queen bee. I gathered up my gear, and drove down to Burr Farm. When I got to Burr Farm took all of my equipment out and went to suit up, that is when I noticed that my glove for my right hand wasn’t fitting properly. I brought his and hers gloves and they were both for the left hand. I flipped my glove upside down so that it would work as a right handed glove.

So at this point, I’m ready to get into the hive, my hands are still protected (I’m not ready to do this gloveless). I remembered that I had a frame on the edge of the inside on the hive that didn’t have bee comb that I planned to place the queen frame on. While I was pulling that frame out, it pulled apart. My extraction of that frame wasn’t working as planned, I would bring one side up the other would go down. I tried pulling it from the plastic foundation in the middle, that wasn’t working as I hoped, but eventually, I got the frame out. Ok, not so bad, I brought extra frames with me. I can replace it.

At this point, I just need remove the cork on the candied side on the queen cage and secure the queen cage on a new frame. I pulled out my needle nose pliers and tried to remove the cork. I was just getting bits and pieces of it, it wouldn’t come out. As I went further down the hole, the less I could open up the pliers to pull out more material. I found a near by stick and tried to get more material out. I got to the point, where I could see the candy and I’m hoping that the bees will be able to get her out. If not, there is another cork that I could pull to release her. Fingers crossed that this will work.

On June 12th, I decided to check on my smaller hives. Hive # 6 needs a second brood box, and they are making new comb, which that is good. Hive #7, I’m sure the queen flew away during my last inspection and I believe that there is a worker bee laying eggs as all I see is capped drone brood in this colony. I do not see enough worker bees for me to consider a purchase of a new queen. I plan on combining that colony with hive #6. That takes me to hive #8, the swarm, it is still small and not drawing a lot of comb on the plastic foundation. I read that adding beeswax in small pieces may help the bees draw comb. I did do that, and the bees were interested in the shredded wax.

Finally hive #3 in my inspections. I was planning on adding another brood super on them, which I did. They were washboarding outside of the hive today. I removed the piece of wood that reduces their entrance and gave them some shredded wax. I’m sure they will be much happier for that.

On June 13th, I plan on inspecting hives #1 and #2. We will see what this brings. Wish me luck! Thank you for reading and Bee Kind!