Went to step two, opening the hives, one at a time, cleaning off the tops of the frames and then taking the frames out, one by one to examine them. Did manage to get some of the bee goo off the top of the frames in each hive. Did manage to get some frames out and sort of look at them. The bees had moved onto the last frame in this first hive body (they started on only four or five of the nine frames). The picture below shows them building their comb on the last frame.
So here is where all planning went to hell. The smoker went out. The bees started flying about, whizzing around my head. The frames were covered in bees, and I squished some with the frame holders when pulling the frames out. I got a little panicked. The bees got a little cranky. I looked at frames in the right hive (the Sylvia hive) first....and got through about three frames before putting everything back and closing it up. In the second hive (the left, or Rachel hive) I moved more frames, got further into the hive....and then, in a cloud of cranky bees, put everything back and came inside.
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Took a cold shower. Feel exhausted, but a little better. NO STINGS. There is always that.
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(1)....need to practice with the smoker. Need to just get good at reliable smoke, when not in a hurry to get in the hive.
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(2)....we put the next box of frames up. Bees now have room to expand, and if there is one thing I determined for sure, they are ready to expand the hive.
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(3)...they still had sugar water left in their baggies. There was definitely a ring of honey around the tops of the frames that I looked at before losing my cool. Left the sugar water on top of the queen excluder on top of the upper deck, just in case they need a little extra boost while pulling out comb on this next level.
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(4)....did not even pretend to look for the queen. We determined that there were a heck of a lot more bees in the hives, so somebody has been laying eggs.
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(5)....did not determine if there were new eggs in the comb. I peeked at a couple frames pretty closely. I saw a billion bees, a lot of capped brood, and that nice ring of honey.
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(6)....and then I just saw bees. Maybe that was perfectly normal bee activity and I just need further desensitization. Maybe when I get my technique down and feel less clumsy, all will go more smoothly and quietly. Maybe, as a new beekeeper, I need to just mark it as a success, take a breath, let the bees and myself regroup, and try again another day.
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(7).....tomorrow night is a monthly bee class/club meeting. I'm definitely showing up. Need some coaching and moral support.
2 comments:
I'll see you there tomorrow night. We put a second brood box on our nuc hive today, too. We had capped brood on all 8 frames! Yikes! Those girls were crowded. Even our package hive was filling out nicely. We'll need to add the second brood box in the next day or two. I feel so proud! But my next question is: when do you open up the entrance to the hive? Honey flow is starting up any time now, isn't it, and we still have only the tiny opening. So many questions.
The WNCbees.org page says to open the entrance wider in mid-April...presumably for established hives. I opened mine on up today since my bees were beginning to have major evening traffic jams on the front of the hive trying to get in the small space.
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Interestingly, the bees returning to the hive continued to go in the left side, oblivious to the wider opening. Only bees beginning to leave the hive were figuring out the door had changed.
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