Week 7, Year 3 Sunday May 31, 2015 Last time I'm opening the hive until autumn

So I put pollen patties on the top of the 3rd box (bottom box) of each hive. The top picture is blurry however, but you can see the bees next to the pollen patty.

 I washed out the 4 one quart jars and then filled them with 1:1 sugar syrup. Here are the feeder jars in the feeder box:

 This is Hive#2, the southeast hive, the top box is full of comb and the second box has 2 combs in it:

 Here is my smoker puffing nicely toward my electric fence charger:

 Here I am with my bee jacket and my hive tool:

 This larva was visible through the window of the 3rd box or bottom box of Hive 2 and was laying on the floor. I chose not to open it all up again.

Here's a video of both hives after I had them put back together:

Wednesday May 27, 2015 - comb building going like gangbusters

So now there are 5 combs in the second box of  my strong hive and 2 combs in the second box of my weaker hive.
Just an update!

I planted Bee Balm, Coneflower, and Hyssop today - all perennials which attract bees.

Memorial Day May 25, 2015

Mom and Dad came out after the Memorial Day Service in Hastings - we bbq'ed chicken drummies, had cheesy potatoes, fresh garden asparagus and rhubarb pie - pulled fresh this morning also!

Filled hive 1's syrup feeders.

Mom came down and looked through the windows at the bees!

All's well.

OH!!! And Tom and Megan Bigelow had a baby girl today - YAY!

Week 6 - Day 42 of my 3rd year of beehives

Beautiful out! Well, not very sunny, but quite mild.
The top box of Hive 1 is jammed full with lovely comb and lots of bees. They have expanded into the second box and have 3-4 combs in there.
Hive 2 is full in the top box as well but there aren't as many bees. Only one comb in the second box with very little activity.

I added a 3rd  box to the bottom of each hive "nadired" - put pollen patties on the top bars of the second box and put them back together.

I will need to add syrup tomorrow but I didn't bring any with me and I was in a hurry since we had a "date night" for the St Paul Chamber Orchestra - I'm writing this after the concert and it was wonderful. Bach, Schoenberg and Schubert.

Anyway, there's the update....

Saturday May 16, 2015 - Preakness Stakes

American Pharoah won the second leg of the Triple Crown
I put sugar syrup in the feeders, hive one was almost empty
Lots of activity!

Sunday May 10, 2015 Day 29 of new hives

It was glorious out yesterday when we returned from our trip to the Czech Republic - side note: we went with 6 of our family members, which included my parents: my dad ended the campaign in WWII under Patton's 3rd Army in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia and there are AMAZING celebrations of their liberators/our veterans annually but particularly on the "five" anniversaries. Of course, these veterans were all over 90, one will turn 100 in one month, so the chance of them returning across the ocean in 5 years, seems difficult to imagine.

We celebrated VE Day and the Liberation Festival in Pilsen from 1-6 May then we were in Prague for the last two days, including 8 May (official VE Day).

Anyway, there was too much laundry, mail, jet lag to check my hives other than I filled one of my syrup jars.

Today, it is cool, windy but I needed to check the pollen patties and replenish the remaining 3 (quart) jars of 1:1 sugar syrup. Of course, my iPhone battery died after my first video and photo, so that will be all you see today! Then it started to rain when I opened the second hive.

So the first hive, both pollen patties were mere remnants, so put more on the bars of the second box (not top box because it pulls the cloth too much and then they will get into my feeder box). The second hive, there was still almost a whole pollen patty left, but I replenished with two more anyway - it's supposed to be cool and rainy the next few days. Jim Kloek (Stillwater, MN) keeps pollen patties on until the first week of June. Marla Spivak's notes (from the U of MN beekeeping course) just show pollen patties for two weeks when one first hives the packages. Well, hopefully, it can't hurt. Too late anyway, they're on.

I was considering looking at a comb but due to the weather, decided against it - I gently pulled back an edge of the top box's cloth and it's so intriguing to feel the heat emanate out of the hive. Thus I sealed it up quickly and let them be.

This is the "first" hive with the two new patties on (see the old ones?):

We hired someone to do a "prescribed burn" of our land ~12 acres before we left for the Czech, so this photo was 10 days ago:

This is the brief video as I opened hive one