Feeding the Girls

Today was cool, so I wasn't sure we would get to visit the bees, but it warmed into a pleasant afternoon. Time to replace the baggies of sugar water. If you click on this picture of the left hive (still no names beyond left and right) you can see the empty baggie we took out. There are now stripes on the baggies where the bees busily glued them to the top of the frames. You can also see burr comb on top of the frames, where the bees tried to fill some of the empty space next to the feeder bags with neat apartment space to lay eggs and store pollen and honey. I didn't scrape the burr comb off the top of the frames (something for next time), but I did scrape some off of the inner cover with my hive tool.

In the second picture, of the right hive, you can see the inner cover on the grass behind the hive, with it's brown spots where I scraped off the beginnings of burr comb. If you blow the picture up, you can also see my girls with their little stripes. You can tell which frames they are living on, and which ones till need occupation. I'm getting ready soon to add another box of empty frames so they don't feel too crowded as they finish filling all these frames.

Having received some tips from Pamela at work, and some equipment from mail order, I tried a new arrangement. Instead of putting the baggies right on top of the frames, I put them on top of my queen excluders. Queen excluders are metal grates that allows worker bees to pass but keeps the queen down below...handy when you want frames of honey with no baby bees in them. Also handy for sitting the baggies on top. I made twice as much sugar water this time. And last but not least, I traded the shallow supers that I had around the baggies for an even shallower feeder box. I painted it a light bluish green, giving the hives racing stripes. You can see the edge of the queen excluder between the hive body and the feeder box.

So...today in a nutshell...1) made sugar water; 2) filled baggies; 3) lit smoker and put on veil and jacket; 4) opened hive (one at a time); 5) took out old baggie (they came out pretty easy, just mild sticky as we pulled them off; 6) put on queen excluder with new baggies on top; 7) poked holes in top of feed bags to allow access to the sweet water; 8) scraped brown sticky off the inner covers; 9) added the blue-green feeder box and put the lid back on.

Oh...and took pictures, right before step #6.

Things we learned:

Don't turn the smoker upside down.

Always be ready to light the smoker again.

There are nine frames in my hives. (Most hives have ten frames. Mine have nine with metal spacers to keep them the right distance apart. They will build deeper combs on these fewer frames.)

I probably learned more than that, but that's what comes to mind.