Week 12 and Wendy and Larry helped us!

So here are some random photos - I never realized how fragrant milkweed flowers are! 

 Here's a little tree frog hiding from me:

 And isn't this moth cool? It looks like Christ hanging on the cross or a man with his arms out. Its (the moth's) head is at the "feet" of the design/man:

 Here's Larry prior to helping Mark lift the hive so I could put another box on - now 6 boxes deep!!

Here is the link to the video of us adding a box

https://youtu.be/fvwZIXx1atU

Week 11 June 27, 2015 Adding a FIFTH box

Mark and I went out to add a fifth box to the bottom of the hive (nadiring).

I don't have a "hive lift" other than my husband so unfortunately, we had to lift off the top two boxes and then the bottom two.

But what happened, is that three of the bars from the third box were stuck to the comb of the second box (above them) so when he lifted the top two boxes, comb was hanging down and he couldn't set the boxes down (because it would have broken the combs which were now suspended in mid-air). So while he held those up (and it must have been ~45#) I gently pried away the bars (from the bottom of the combs of the second box) with their comb (and bees) and replaced them in the top of the third box. (though not until AFTER I had dropped a couple into the third box). LORD! I just hope the queen didn't get killed with all this rigamarole.

Anyway, then I set the 3rd and 4th box aside and we placed the 5th box and then the 8 top bars in that box. Then the 3rd and 4th went back on, (the 3rd had open comb on top of the top bars which had not fallen off with lifting the second box - see photo), then the top two. At which point, some nasty little worker bee stung my right hand. I brushed the embedded stinger out of the back of my  hand and continued working.

The quilt box went back on, then the roof and we were finished!!

Here are photos of my left and right hand:

 See the swelling on the back of my right hand? (below my  middle and ring fingers)

and a final video:

Here I am, ready to go the hive, with my new "bee" boots on!

 Here is the hive all put back together:

June 12 - week 9?

So I took off my feeder jars and boxes which held the feeders, took off the cloth which had the hole in the middle (so the bees could access the feeder jars) and replaced it with a top bar cloth which is intact from edge to edge and put the quilt box and roof back on.

There was some comb and honey on top attached to the screen of the feeders, which I quickly scraped into a tupperware to eat!

Top picture is Hive 1 (the stronger one with 4 boxes on):

 This is Hive 2, looking into top of hive before I put the cloth on and close it up:

FOURTH box on hive 1! June 6, 2015

So not only is it the 71st anniversary of DDay today but American Pharoah won the Belmont Stakes and thus the Triple Crown!!! After 37 years, we have another Triple Crown winner.

I added a fourth box to hive one because they were building comb in 3rd box already. Hive 2 is way behind, still only 2 combs in bottom/second box.  But it still has 3 boxes "just in case it takes off"

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!