Second Inspection Late Winter 2011

Great day to take a look at the home hives. Noon time temps were in the mid 60s today. Honey from from the dead-out hive is almost all gone the bees have been very good at taking it. Looks like the strategy worked.  Removed one frame from the middle of the bottom brood box of hive 1 and it was full of capped brood on both sides of the frame. Laying pattern of the queen in this hive is excellent. Top super still has plenty of capped and new uncapped honey stored. Population of this hive is great with lots of bees in both boxes. Added a empty medium super so the bees will have room when the brood hatches out. Will add a few jars of 1:1 sugar water when the weather warms back up in the next day or two. This should stimulate the bees to draw out the comb in the top super. High hopes for this hive. I will need to watch for signs of swarming and make sure they have plenty of room to expand. This hive might be a split candidate.

I had reversered the brood and super boxes on hive two a couple of weeks age. Still not much action taking place in the brood box. Still a lot of small hive beetles (SHB) in this hive. Pulled one frame from the bottom box and there was a good pattern of capped brood on the frame. Pulled another frame and tapped off the bees due to the high number of SHB. Tapped all of the SHBs out of the cells as well. Installed a beetle blaster trap in the top outside edges of both boxes. Moving this hive into the sun should help but need to control the beetles before they ruin the comb.

Hive three looks just as good as hive one. Took the half  full honey super from hive four and placed it on this hive. Did this because they looked like they needed the room. Bees all through this hive so I decided not to pull any frames. Just pulled the top super and had a look at the brood box it too was chocked full of bees. Hope that they will move into the top super as they need more room. Will monitor this hive for signs of swarming and split it if I can.

Hive four is still very weak with very few bees in the upper two supers. Removed the newspaper from between the brood box and full honey super. Only three frames had bees on them in the brood box. Saw capped drone cells and a few supersedure queen cells being constructed. My guess is the queen is weak and she is being replaced. Going to let this hive and and nature run its course. This was the hive that was re-queened last fall. Like Bill Hansen's hive at the Brown yard it looks like the queens we got last fall  may not have been very viable and or well bred.