Sunday, March 25, 2012

Springtime in the Bee Yard.

On March 17th, we completed a full inspection of our hives.  All is well, and with the mild weather, the bees are happy and working hard.  They are bringing in a lot of pollen, and some nectar too.  We reversed the 2 deep brood boxes, and added new screened bottom boards with an oil tray on each hive.  These replace the bottom boards from last year, which used a beetle trap that had to be serviced from the front of the hive.  Some days, the bees didn't care for that arrangement!  To remedy that, I designed and built a screened bottom board that uses a tray that can be serviced from the back of the hive.  This is much less interrupting to the hive, and makes things much easier on the bees, and us!  Below is a photo of the new Screened Bottom Board, and tray:
Any small hive beetles or mites that are dislodged from the bees and the frames will now fall thru the screen, and into the tray.  The tray contains vegetable oil, and it will trap and kill any pests that fall into it.  It's a great chemical-free pest management system, and should help us keep our bees and hive pest free.  So far, they are working great.

While inspecting the hives, we noticed that the queen has been working hard.  We found a lot of capped brood, and eggs and larva in various stages of development.  With the mild weather, the hives really got rolling early this year, and hopefully it will be a good year for bees and honey!

A brood box frame of capped brood, and the nurse bees looking after them:
Below is the Queen of the hive, in all her splendor!  She is right in the middle of the frame, with her attendants surrounding her.  Pretty girl!
The hives will need to be monitored closely this spring, due to everything blooming so early.  The nectar flow is starting, and honey supers will have to at the ready because they will probably fill them with honey very quickly.  Swarming may also be an issue early on, due to the fast buildup of the hive population.  Mild winter weather is both a blessing and a curse to the beekeeper.  The next month or two should be interesting, and challenging too!

3 comments:

  1. Like the theme of your blog and the valuable information provided through this post. It is really nice to read it. Keep Sharing.

    Thanks for sharing.
    WeSaveBees | Live Bee Removal Corona

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you very much for sharing. Do you have plans for it?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you for this post. Love this blog it has answered many of my questions and I will continue using it. You can use 4 frame honey extractors to extract honey easily.

    ReplyDelete