Friday, July 18, 2014

Updated hive photos

So here are some updated photos:


Can you see the liquid in some of the cells? It's nectar which will be dehydrated to honey.
These were taken this week!

Monday, July 7, 2014

last video of preparing the super

So there is one more video of me getting the "old top box" ready to become the second box and putting the new box (the super) on top of that one. I have taken 2 bars with combs out of the old one and placed them next to each other in the super. I put them toward the left end of the box, since they always seem to start building comb at that end and then move across (right).


Sunday, July 6, 2014

July 6, 2014 Putting supers on the hives

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 So today I decided to "super" my hives. That is, I put a new box on top of each hive in order to encourage the bees to just make honey in the top box. Supposedly, we are having a really great nectar flow so the bees should be bringing in lots of nectar to dehydrate and make into honey.

So I took off the roof, then the quilt box. I pulled back the top cloth and removed 2 combs attached to their top bars and transferred them into the new top box. Then I put two replacement top bars back in those boxes.

 I don't know what I'm talking about half the time, so don't take my word on what these images show...I'm just not sure :)



Because after I said there isn't any capped brood, I saw some or capped pollen but I think it's a capped drone cell. The puffy yellow thing.

Anyway, then I put the cloth on top of the "new top box" after I put the new box on top of the hive. Then I  reassembled it.  All went well. No stings.


this is just a picture of the open box:



and this is inside the box when 2 top bars/combs are removed: