It was a bright day with mostly clear skies and slightly drier with less humidity than we've had for some time now. It is obvious from the changes in the amount of daylight that we are entering another season. I had several tasks planned for this visit: painting over the old registration numbers on the hives; stenciling my registration numbers to replace the old ones; trimming and weeding around the hives; rearranging the supers in preparation for harvesting some honey and doing a general inspection on the healthy and activity in the hives.
I worked outside the hives first removing the old numbers and using my stencil to paint on the new ones. The weeds had grow up quite abundantly around the hives over the summer months, and I pulled quite a bit of grass and other plant material from around the base of the hives and from in front of the hive entrances. I noticed that a clump of brasilian pepper bushes had grown quite tall and wide near hive #1 and was shading the entrance to this hive. I made a note to remember my saw and trim and cut this plant on my next visit. After this initial work around the hives, I prepared my smoker and began to get into the hives.
Hive #1 had 4 supers. I removed each one and inspected each for activity and how many of the frames were drawn and filled. I had set out 2 boards and placed the supers on these as I removed them from the hive, setting the 2 I would eventually take on one board and the other 2 supers on the other. 2 of the supers had 7 plastic and 3 wood frames in each. The plastic frames do not seem to be the bees favorite, because these were the frames that were not completely drawn with comb and/or filled with honey. After stacking the supers, I removed the queen excluder and examined the hive body frames. I did not notice any mites, although I think they are just too small for my eyes to see ... at least through a veil. The brood pattern looked good with an active queen and lots of capped brood, eggs and developing larva. I did not see any small hive beetles (SHB). I also did not find the queen in this hive although it was evident that she was there and busy rearing young bees. I worked now to reassemble the hive, replacing the queen excluder and stack the supers back onto the hive body, ordering them so that the 2 fullest supers would be on top and placing a bee escape between the lower 2 and upper to supers. This would allow the bees in the supers to be later removed to escape and leave those supers relatively empty of bees on my return in 2 days. I did rearrange several frames among the supers prior to restacking them, moving 2 plastic frames from one super to another and replacing them with 2 wooden frames. This made 1 super with 5 plastic and 5 wooden frames and the other with 9 plastic and 1 wooden frame. While swapping frames and reinserting them into the supers, some of the really full frames were difficult to place back in. In doing so a couple of the frames had the cappings scraped off and honey oosed out and puddle down on the wooden board that I had stacked them on. I will leave the board with the honey and hope that the bees will gather this excess and return it to its proper place in the hive. I hope in the near future to replace all of the plastic frames with wooden one. Also the 2 of the older super boxes are beginning to show signs of wood rot along the edges. I will eventually order new super boxes and replace these. This completed my work on the first hive.
Hive #2 had 2 regular supers, 1 Ross Round super and 2 hive bodies. I began by removing the supers and queen excluder. By this time in the day I was quite exhausted and decided to make just a brief and spot inspection of the top hive body. I had place this 2nd hive body on the hive only a couple of month back and I wanted to see how the colony had works to fill it. The outside frames were almost completed full of honey stores and no brood. I pulled and examined an inner frame again looking a brood pattern and signs of stress, mites, deformed wings, SHB, etc. I was also going to look for the queen ... this has so far been a challenge for me to scan a frames filled with moving bees and to identify the slightly larger queen bee. To my surprise, I notice her of the first middle frame and watched her for a while. Each time I turned the frame she would scurry around to the bottom side. I was worried about replacing the frame in the hive body and the possibility that she would get squashed as I slid the frame back into place. I waited until she moves up into the middle of the frame and then gently slid the frame back into place. Satified that this colony was also doing quite well, I replaced the queen excluder and began to reassemble the hive. I placed one of the supers that was only about half drawn with comb on top of the hive, and then the Ross Round super. It was about half drawn and filled with 4 of the 8 frames completed. I placed the remaining super, completely drawn out with comb and filled with honey on the top and replace the cover. I will also remove this top super from this hive on my return visit in two days.
I was now quite tired, down at least 2 quarts of liquid that had been released as sweat into my drenched clothing and with a bit of a headache. I had acquired only about 4 stings and all in the same area on the top of my hand. My cotton gloves just don't seem to to the job protecting my hands. Note to self: purchase canvas or leather gloves on next order. Its not that I really mind the stings, but its the swelling and pain the next day that is the most irritating.
Overall it was a very successful outing and I was now in a position to return in 2 days to remove the supers and prepare then to extract and harvest the honey. Each visit I seem to learn a bit more about my hives and have a better idea of what to expect. I also this time was better prepared with a list of tasks and the equipment organized and ready to go as I needed it.
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