July 2011

7/24 Inspected the hives at AL: The hive in the newer location outside the cottage is doing really well... although much of the honey is still uncapped. Decide to remove two frames of honey to free up some space. Looked in the other hive and saw similar but maybe not as much honey. Placed a new medium on top and placed the frames from the other hive in there, so that the bees could use them as guides and to give us time to sort out our harvesting equipment.

7/23 Inspected the hives in the backyard. The langstroth was doing well although the bees had not added more comb in the top box where a lone frame of honey had been placed before. Bees seem congested below so removed two frames of capped honey..... could decide how to store it while we were away in New Orleans, so put the frames back in the hive in the top box. TBH still struggling a little with not much honey.

7/10 Inspected all the hives. At the house the langstroth hive (the new package this year) was doing well. The hive consists of four mediums. The top medium has one frame of capped honey and no comb building elsewhere, the next box has lots of honey but very little capped. Briefly looked in the next box and when eggs were immediately seen we shut the hive back up.

The tbh is the same as before. Not much honey, patchy brood, and a few bees with deformed wings.

At AL the newly positioned hive was doing well, although the bees are still refusing to cap most of the honey. Looked through most of the mediums and found mostly straight combs. Briefly checked the top brood box and found eggs. Closed up the hive. The other langstroth hive was a little feisty. This is the hive that's always been feisty but recently has been fairly mellow. Look through a few mediums of uncapped honey and then abandoned the inspection.

7/4 Inspected the two monster hives at AL. Both doing well with lots of bees and honey, although the honey is still mainly uncapped.

7/3 Inspected the only Langstroth hive in the backyard which was from the package of bees at the start of the year. It now consists of 5 medium boxes, with a decent amount of honey inside. Lots of brood.

7/2 Noticed that the fennel was just starting to bloom along the creek.

7/1 With local help we moved the monster hive in the backyard to AL. Needed four people to carry it and a truck. Moved it at 7am and had it in place 20 minute later. Let them sit for 20 minutes and then opened the front door. A good few bees flew out without orienting first. These bees ended back at the house and through the day their numbers grew. Placed a box at the house and the confused bees went inside to find nothing. All the returning bees seemed to be star performers and were loaded with pollen. Placed the box back at AL the following morning. Placed grass in the hive entrance as it was opened up to stop the bees flying out without thinking. All the bees were back in the proper hive the next morning.