October 19, 2014 - pulled "baggie" feeders

It is still nice out, and it made it to 65 degrees here today. So I got the smoker going and headed to the hives around 3pm.

Here I am in my outfit :)

Note the smoker and I'm by the hive :)

That's my A or #1 Hive 

The photo above is looking up into the top box of Hive A/1. It is my stronger hive. The bees were really active on this sunny warm afternoon. The white comb on the left is newer comb and the brown comb is capped honey and pollen. There are 6 combs which look good for winter and then the 2 newer ones on the left which are somewhat feeble.

I took each hive apart and pulled out the baggies which had syrup in them because they keep leaking down on the bottom board and the bees are accumulating on the board near the back of the hive. That's not such a big deal but there are also other bees and yellow jackets showing up so I wanted to discourage that.

I emptied the leaking baggies into the jar feeders and am really glad I remembered to bring a bucket along to minimize spillage. Some syrup still spilled, but I wiped it up as well as I could.

On  Hive B, the combs from the second box kept putting pressure on the baggie (on top of the top bars of the third box) so it leaked worse than Hive A. I pulled the bottom board out completely so I could bring it to the house to dry off. I put the hives back together and made sure the boxes' edges were aligned properly.

I am going to continue to feed them this week even though it's getting late in the season - because during the day, it's going to be in the 60's. My understanding is that they will keep taking down the sugar syrup as long as the temps are that high.