Monday, April 22, 2013

Sniff Sniff

A bit of good advice I read was to have in mind what you want to do before you open the hive. Yesterday I put a piece of Pam sprayed paper in the bottom of the hives( to check for tintiest,foul, blood sucking, hive diminishing mites the bees groom off). That's what I wanted to do, but when I lifted off the top of the Langstroth hive, it didn't smell right to me.  Now, I'm not exactly sure what it is supposed to smell like, it just seemed off. Anywhoo, I put in the paper and looked around, nothing amiss that I could see. Closed it up.  I don't like to bother the girls more than once a week, but after checking the weather, I knew I needed to get back in there and get the paper out before the weather turned cool and nasty.  That, I'm told, results in very grouchy bee girls.  Since I've made it  almost three weeks now without a sting, I'm hoping to keep it going. I also wondered if perhaps the sugar water had fermented.  Since it's going to get cold again, keeping the girls from foraging, I figured it best to change out that water.

Good call Miss Newbie Bee Keeper. When I opened the hive today, the feeder sugar water was moldy, ewwwwww, and I also discovered where ants were coming in. So, hopefully, all is set to rights.

What you are seeing here is mostly capped cells, hopefully full of about to be brand new girls.  See the eggs in the bottom left cells?  Fascinating.


Oh My JOY

Climbing up behind the falls at Hemlock Cliffs with my boyfriend.

2 comments:

  1. Your pictures and stories ARE fascinating! I know the honey will be awesome with all the TLC your bees are getting.

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  2. We had a bee swarm in our back yard, and I observed the bees "waggling," so of course I had to look it up. The scout bees use the waggle to tell the swarm about the new locations they have found. Such fascinating creatures! Then this afternoon the swarm was gone. I wish I could have seen it leave.

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