Up to 3 Boxes Each at the Lair

Two days ago, I added a box of foundation to each hive at the lair bringing them up to 3 each.  All three hives were more than 50% finished drawing out and using their second box (with the first box almost completely full of brood and a couple frames of honey on the outside) and while the general rule is to add a box of foundation when they're 70% done with the previous one, I don't get out there often enough to be really certain that I'd catch them before they got overcrowded so I added a third box a bit early.

I looked closely at many of the frames with Jen (a Lair native) and I'd guess there was 10 frames of eggs and brood in each hive -- they're really making new bees fast!  They'll have to pick up honey production to hit more than 4 medium boxes in August, but if the weather allows a good honey flow in the next couple months, they'll certainly have the population to take advantage of it!

I noticed something I haven't seen so obviously in the past -- we smoked the hives, primarily so we could scrape off burr comb between the boxes without angering hundreds of bees (we just crushed two or three each time) and when I inspected frames, I saw many more bees than usual with their butts sticking out of cells with ripening nectar.  They were obviously sipping some of the nectar, possibly filling up on sugar in the event that they had to leave in a fire.  I think it happened much more than usual because none of the honey was capped yet -- they were still evaporating water to get it thick enough to preserve -- and I wasn't really that aware of normal bee activity early last year before they started capping honey throughout the hive.

Tomorrow, we'll be visiting the Acreage where Meg and Jo now reside, but I don't really expect good weather.  I think I'll try to have a look at activity in the top box if it's not actually raining, but it doesn't look promising.  ONE of these days, I'll get out there to see what's going on in a second-year hive!

Quick Inspection Update

Meg and Jo moved from 75 to East Bethel where they reside with my Dad's 5 hives.  It's pretty soggy up there right now, but they're on cinder blocks and dirt piles so they should stay nice and dry barring a bizarre flash-flood.  They're both very strong, and have filled the first three boxes with brood and some honey and when I peeked in yesterday, they were working hard on all 10 frames of the fourth box.  My dad is going to try to open up some space in the brood nest by moving any frames of honey up to the fourth box and replace them with foundation.  He'll try to put the foundation between frames of capped brood to encourage proper spacing of all the drawn comb.

At the Lair in Afton (so named long before I set up an apiary there) all three hives are growing fast with a dozen frames of capped and partially capped brood each.  They started with one box each of drawn comb, and have drawn out 4/10 frames in the second box.  With the quick progress they're making, I'll add an extra box of foundation -- probably on Wednesday or Thursday when the Lair's residents can help!

Spring Cleaning and 3 New Hives

I've been a bit crazy since adopting a new child (yay!) but I still manage to make some time for the bees.

Mid-April, I opened up Meg and Jo to make sure the bees were near capped honey so they weren't in danger of starving.  Even if there's honey in the hive, if it gets too cold, and they bees are forced into a small ball to keep warm, they may starve with honey just a few inches away as they stay put to try to keep their brood warm!

Both hives were clustered in a great spot near plenty of honey, so I just took off the winter cover and swept out a couple of inches of dead bees that had collected over the winter.  Last weekend, my dad was kind enough to reverse the hives -- swapping the top and bottom of the three medium boxes to push the queen's brood rearing back down to the bottom.  This helps organize the remaining space for the year's honey collection and harvest.

On  April 23, my dad and I traveled out to our new location in Afton where Jen and Lucia have kindly allowed me to put up three hives on their property!  We built a simple fence to keep their dogs from getting too close and installed three 3lb packages of bees with MN Hygenic queens.  All three hives have one box of drawn comb from last year, a second box of foundation (undrawn honeycomb) and two boxes on top holding a small feeder jar.

Today, I went out to make sure the queens were laying, and I found all three hives had eggs, and at least one of them had capped brood in it!  I'll have to make a regular pilgrimage to the apiary as it was really nice to take a long lunch break (the apiary is MUCH closer to work than home).  I removed the feeders and found that each hive was well established in the bottom box and none of them had started drawing out comb in the second box.

Here's a couple more pictures.  First, the collection of bees on top of the first box of one hive, and
second, some eggs and larvae on a frame after I blew on them a little to get the girls to move out of the way.