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| MQ hive has doubled in last 2 wks. Lots of capped brood visible here. |
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| Pkg hive capping honey. Population is up?? |
MQ finished sugar water yesterday.
Propped the lids open on all hives since it looks to be
consistently warm to hot for awhile. Looked in all hives.
MQ is now working on 10 frame faces, up from
5 faces 14 days ago. There is some capped honey, and some capped
brood. Activity seems pretty good generally. Healthy, but they
have a ways to go to make it through the winter on their own. Still
feeding sugar water every 3-4 days.
Package hive is doing ok. Looks like more bees are working the top
super, so perhaps the new queen has been producing workers.
There is more honey in the top super now. If this hive swarmed on
5/29 it's likely then that there is a new queen and some of her
brood is hatched and at work.
Swarm hive seems ok too. About the same amount of honey in
top super. Activity on hive is good. This hive swarmed on
6/3, so it would be another week before we see a large number
of new bees.
Concurrent beehive inspection report
ReplyDelete7/1/2012, 82, sunny
1. 2012 swarm hive
a. Only sugar fed in June was bottles running out as we went on vacation, maybe 3 days in both hives.
b. 5 sides of bees (2.5 frames) in upper hive body, in middle, honey and pollen, no brood, bees thick
c. 5 sides of bees (2.5) in lower hive body, in middle, brood in good pattern and right proportion, bees thick, some honey and pollen
d. estimate 2000 bees per side or 10,000 bees now ... the size of a package; started this hive with two partial frames of swarm bees, plus added 3 partial frames of honey from the larger hive; so input was 5,000 bees total; didn't see eggs; didn't see the queen, but larvae is indication she is laying.
e. not much extra honey
f. didn't see any sign of disease; no varroa mites.
g. swept one side of bottom board and widened opening to full width.
2. Large hive:
a. top super: no foundation or honey a few bees;
b. next super: 7 frames capped honey 10% bees;
c. next super: 9 frames capped honey 20% bees;
checked for varroa mites ... none seen
d. 7.5 frames of bees at 50% capacity; honey and pollen; no brood
e. 8.5 frames of bess at 75% capacity; 5 frames of honey and pollen; 3 frames of brood in various stages; didn't see eggs or queen;
f. one capped queen cell and several uncapped queen cells
g. no other signs of disease
bee estimate:
a: supers 825 + 1750 = 2550
b: 10 x 2000 x .50 = 10,000
c: 10 X 2000 x .75 = 15,000
So around 25 to 30000 bees.
Need to order 10 to 20 hive body frames. Will call; don't see any rush on harvesting honey; but could take one frame from the large hive;
Correction: Could take one super with nine frames from the large hive.
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