Videos of the two 2# packages of bees

Videos of the packages

(Mark photobombs, of course)

(and by "don't want to kill anyone," I meant my worker bees

both of the corks in the queen cages were crooked, I'm surprised my queens did not escape!!

Getting ready to install the bee packages today

So I have readied the hives - it is Saturday April 11, 2015 and fortunately, a warm sunny day.
The sugar syrup (1:1) is mixed and in my feeder bottles as well as my spray bottle.
Here are photos and videos of the preparations!

My assembled hive with feeder box on top of 2 top bar boxes:

The inside of the feeder box - the inverter syrup jars go in those holes:

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 A comb from the top box:

 The other side of the same comb - the capped cells on the upper left are honey comb:

These videos explain my hive boxes:

These two videos show how the bottom board is all chewed up:

The honey harvest!!

So this is the first bottle this morning, and the rest is still filtering, will likely get 5 pounds (or 80 ounces of honey). This bottle is 48 oz/3#!!

Even if the bees didn't make it, at least we have a lot of honey!

I emailed Marla Spivak and she was kind enough to promptly answer me. Via questions and answers, she feels the chance of mite infection is low and more likely, I just didn't have strong enough colonies going into the cold snap of November.

It is a learning process. Next year, I will get a tar paper wrap on, in addition to my straw bales.

Ordering 2 packages come spring time

Yep, bees are dead and clustered around the comb - when the kids are home for Christmas, we'll take the hives apart, see if there is any honey to harvest (did they really go through it in a month?) and examine the comb and bees.

I need to figure out what is going wrong, it can't be the cold because there are Canadians who have this type of hive and get their bees through the winter.

Oh well.............

Polar vortex November 2014

Really? It's cold so early.
I went to the hives today with my stethoscope. Hive A, always the stronger one, was buzzing delightfully. That was the top box so the cluster is up there (where most of the honey should be).
But Hive B, I'm not so sure, was I just imagining a faint buzzing? And shouldn't it be louder even if they're in the second box?

Oh well, it looks like I'll be ordering at least one package come springtime.

Time will tell.

It's snowng lightly, supposed to get 2-3 inches today and it's 21degrees out and no sign of warming above 32 until a week from now.

November 9, 2014 - insulating the hives

Mark and Jon stacked straw around the hives yesterday and today. I'm still debating the whole tar paper wrapping thing but will just keep this windbreak for now.

New batteries in the fencer went in today too.
Here are my hives:

(if you look closely, you can see Doc staring at me, from the corral, wondering what I am up to).

And here are some of the deer on my game camera:

 Isn't he beautiful??

 These are the triplet fawns which have been spotted on our land by our neighbors all summer:

 Adorable little buck:

We are expecting our first major snow storm starting late tonight...stay tuned.

Ready for winter

Today is Saturday November 1st and three days ago, I pulled the feeder boxes. All I have to do now is get straw stacked around the hives.  The bottom boards are pulled out about halfway.