Inspection for May 18, 2013

Hello All,
           Today I inspected my hive but unfortunately wasn't able to get pictures on the inside. My hive is going nuts though and have already put a third box on after three weeks. WOW. Every frame is filled with brood (babies) and honey on the top. I saw my queen and she is massive. I was able to get pictures of the outside. They are here below:

I call it the poor mans hive because this is the first time that we have put different colored boxes on. I hope to have more pictures next week!!!!

Starting Up Again

Well I'm starting up again. I found out my bees died again. I have decided to get more and am also getting a breed that is more aggressive in there honey production and spring buildup. My Dads hive survived the winter and have decided to get the breed that has survived the winters. I promise this year to keep you all in the loop as well as I will be trying to raise queens this year. So if you have any friends that are beekeepers let them know I will be doing queens. I won't have some for a little while but will have them in the middle of the summer.

Bee Update

Hey Guys here is just a quick bee update. We opened all three hives today and when I opened mine I was in trouble. Mistake #1...of this year. When I took out the queen cage I was stupid enough not to put a frame back in its place. So the bees took the liberty to fill one in. Ha Ha. Here are some pictures of what happened it wasn't pretty. This is on the inner cover by the way.

You also see that I looked puzzled. Well that is because I was trying to figure out what to do with it. So I moved it off to the side not wanting to remove it because I did not find the queen and had a feeling she was on there. Also I have some pictures and the size of the colony is amazing. My hive, my dad swears, is twice the size of his. The colony should be dwindling down a bit by now so that is why I was surprised.

Bees

So looking at my other posts I found out that I did not tell you that my bees died over this spring. So we think that they were so small of a cluster they didn't want to go to the top box to eat the honey. Well we have new bees now. We enjoyed it so much that we got three this year. One is of course mine the other is my Dad's (and Mom's) and the third is my Brother's which he won. We just got the bees yesterday. It was amazing. I got stung yesterday when one bee was crawling up my shorts. That was not amazing. Lets just say it was very uncomfortable. Rule #1 Never wear shorts without rubber bands around the legs. Today we ended up believing Nick had a robbing attack because we put the feeder on the top of the bars. Well the thing is about a top bar hive is that the lid isn't really a full blown lid. The lids only purpose is to protect the bees from the elements. There are holes on each side of the lid. The other two are plugging away just fine. I will go ahead and post another in about 1-2 days when we get in to see if the queen has been released.

Good Resource

For those of you that have kids then The Honey Files is a good science resource. There is a little evolution in it but you can skip over that.

Long time no post

Hello everyone it has been a long time since I have posted anything. It is beekeeping season again and I will try to get more posts out. My brother won a top bar hive from the Utah County Beekeepers Association and will get his equipment April 7 and his bees April 28. It will bee a new adventure for us because we have never had a top bar hive before. Please Comment if you have heard any tips about this hive.

Thanks,
Mitchell

P.S. I will not post anything this week because I will be at a Debate Tournament in Spokane, Washington this week.

Medication

Hey Guys,
Yesterday my parents went to Orem to get my medication and were talking to the guy who owns the shop and  he said that the time that I needed to medicate was when I pulled off the honey supers. So today I medicated my bees and that went better that expected so here is the process:
We took 2 pounds of powdered sugar and added it to the Duramyacin we also took the varroa strips and put them in and we also put in a protein patty. We put 1 teaspoon of the Duramyacin on the right side of the frames on the bottom box and the same on the left side. We put a varroa strip on the right third on the fourth frame and a strip on the left third of the 5th frame. We put the protein patty on the top of the second box. They had a good 7-8 frames filled with honey so they should make it through the winter. Also we have to do the Duramyacin medications every 5 days for three times so we have two more times to medicate. We also have to take out the strips 21 days after today. I will keep you updated on where they are every five days. Here are also some pictures of what was in the hive today:

Down to Three

Hey Guys,
We are now down to three boxes. Looked in the hive today and saw they were a little spread out.

Thats the update,
Mitch
P.S. There are pictures of the most recent activity.
September 17, 2011

Honey has (almost) defininite dates

Hey Guys went to Jones Bee Company today and got one hundred, Single Pound bottles. We also put ourselves for the extractor for August 6. So far we will have honey the following week. WOO-HOOO

P.S. Stacie, and the rest of you, will get the honey very soon.

Found out what was wrong

Hey Guys,
Found out what was wrong they were overcrowding so we added another box and added ventilation and that did really well. So now we know what was wrong.

Bees? Not doing so well?

Hey Guys I just wanted to say that there is something wrong, I don't know about this, or the bees are getting really protective. There is so many bees on the entrance board that you can't see the bottom. This has been going on for a few days now and when I called Jones Bees to ask about the problem the lady said that it could bee a potential problem but gave me no more information. I hope to go there and figure out what is going on.
P.S. HONEY IS ON ITS WAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Announcement

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
     I am proud to present that we have 5 out of the 9 frames in our honey harvest box almost complete which means honey is on its way!!!!!!!!!

Third Box added time for HONEY!

Well it is time to add the honey box. Mitchell has been very anxious to get in his hive and add this third box. It was 94 degrees and the bees did not like us disturbing there home in this heat.

This looks like another swarm but it is the bees on the outside of the hive trying to cool off. Not sure if it is the heat or if they are mad at Mitch :)
They are making lots and lots of honey in the second box and even down into the first.  We are seeing less and less brood.  We are hoping that everything is ok. here is the honey we saw, it was dripping all over.

Other things to note was a drone, Male bee landed on Mitch's suit and we got a good picture to show you.

What a trade off this guy lives longer but come winter he will be forced out.  Another fact is he has no stinker.

 This picture was a few days ago we believe there was a hatch because the hive was very busy.  Many bees climbing out and up the hive to take flight off the roof. They then fly in circles called orientation flight.

This one was taken after the third box was added and the bees cover the box and fan there wings.  This is called bearding again they are trying to cool down.

First signs of capped Honey

Well this is not our honey this is still in box 2 but we are getting close.  By next weekend we will probably be adding the queen excluder (sorry no queens allowed) and box number 3 which we can harvest. The will be very busy these next few weeks.  But here are some photos of what the capped honey will look like notice the snow white color in the cap.  The brood or eggs were yellow. 

 This photo shows honey up top and notice those dark cells that is pollen.

 Notice this photo has honey at the top and capped brood in the middle.  This is what we should be seeing food stored up top and eggs layed in the lower 3/4. with some cells of pollen notice the dark cells at the bottom.

Big Daddy Bee Whisperer First Swarm Containment

Don't panic it was not our bees that swarmed.....We received a call from my brother saying he had a swarm in is back yard.  I went to investigate.

Yep, you have a swarm.  Ok everything we have seen and read says we cut the branch and shake the bees in to their new home.  Nice and easy Bee Keeping for Dummies tells us we don't need a full suit up these bees are at their most genteelness stage. The have no home, food, or brood to protect.  Well I assure you with this many Bees I was taking no chances.

Suite and Smoke for me.  Ok ready lets cut the branch and shake.

Oops, no branch this is the chain link fence, anyone got a grinder.

Well this story does not end well, no one got hurt but I failed a my first attempt to catch a swarm.  I tried shoveling them like Jones Bee store told me,  I tried brushing them in to a box I could catch a few but most just pushed to the other side of the fence.  I was puzzled so I set up my newly bought and painted hive with sugar water in it hoping they would just migrate in. Ten minutes later as we sat and watched the wind picked up and like a twister the all took flight and were gone:(