Hives Check 7/3/17

Source Hive
Whew, is it hot out there. I went out around 3:45pm to look in on the ladies. It's hot, somewhere in the 90's, with just a gentle breeze. They were plentiful and a little grumpy, once I got into the hive. Loud buzzing. Turns out they have 17 bars of comb! and one more that they are almost completely done making.

The hive, I think, is kind of messy. I probably should have been in there more often. That's on me. I have burr comb on over half the bars, though thankfully none are cross-combing. The queen is a prolific little monarch. I only took a casual glance because they were a little angry (I think because of the heat, and I felt like a five-thumbed troll trying to get into the hive) so I did not see the queen. However, there is larvae, eggs, capped brood, and 18 bars of full comb. I have very little doubt that she isn't there.

In any event, they are getting far too big for their britches. I don't see any swarm cells, though I didn't look too hard. I think it's time to make a split. I haven't done that before, and I'm a little nervous about it. I have an extra hive, I just need a stand and a lid (and a queen, most likely). I will read up on it again and work on that the rest of this week.

SR Hive
We showed up at Sunflower River at 5:30 and soon moved out to the hives. The farm had two new interns who were curious to see the hives, so they followed us, along with Tristan's five year old son Gawain who was finally brave enough to come see the hive. It was still warm out, but the trees in the area gave us a dispersed shade that was actually quite pleasant.

Tristan reported that he's found that the bees have emptied the feeder every five days, and that tells me that they are growing enough that they are relying more on their own reserves. We'll continue to feed them for a while, but only once per week.

Our goal was just to see how the hive was doing with their additional box and just see how prolific they are. After having such a rough start, I wasn't so interested in looking through the whole hive. We just got into the top box and investigated how much they had done since the last time we were there. They had expanded to making 8 frames of comb (though one was barely started and two of them were half-frames, though they were using it). Larvae and capped brood and honey were in them in a good pattern. I saw the queen on one of those frames, so obviously she's doing her work and they are starting to expand.

We let them alone and closed up the hive, leaving them to it.

Overall, a pretty good day!