Bee hives

[rbeau30]

That is awesome! Thanks for the update!

I may have found a someone that has all the stuff, and comb already made in the boxes. They can't do bee keeping where they are at and I offered my space up to them if they wanted to get back into it. They sounded excited, but they said they can't find any place selling queens right now. but they woud keep watching for them.

[SamuraiCO]

http://www.highlandbees.com/

Have them try Tim at Highland. He is in Boulder

[SamuraiCO]

Time for another check up. Last time we found the queens and marked each one to make it easier to find her as the population increases. We decided to put another deep on so they have some growing room for the summer. We want them to put up lots of honey and pollen for their winter stores. They should have 1000 or so bees a day hatching. During this check we checked for brood, looked for disease and checked over all health. You always want to either find the queen or look for evidence that she is there laying eggs like lots of brood.

One hive was busier than the other but both definately had increases in populations. The bees were still pretty docile and I have yet to have to use any smoke when working in the hives.



I had removed a couple of empty frames and put aside so I can start pulling frames and check. We had scrapped off the old bees wax on the frames and the girls are busy building out new wax.



Closer look at the frame being drawn out with new wax.



Remember we marked our queens with green. Can you spot her? In the busier hive she was in the upper deep looking for good cells for laying eggs. I suspect in a few weeks they will be full of brood.

[SamuraiCO]

Time for another check. Looking at how the hives are filling out the frames.

Numbers coming up but they are still pretty docile. I have yet to have to smoke them to calm them down. If my stronger hive has filled out their honey stores I will put on a honey super for our consumption. The wet, mild summer has the wild flowers really blooming.



Nice frame of capped honey.....mmmm. But that is their winter stores.



Capped honey on top, capped brood under. Queen still busy that is good.



I also got some plants at Tagaowa that are bee friendly. There was some lavender from my yard that have reseeded and I dug up. I plan on bringing out as much as I can between now and the end of the year and transplant as much of it as I can. Lavender makes such good tasting honey.

[CHA-LEE]

My wife started her first Bee Hive this year. Its all new to her and me, but it seems like they are doing good and are really busy. We have two deep boxes and one short on top. We just added the short on top this past weekend as the first two deep boxes were starting to get jam packed with bee's, honey and brood.

The bee hive is my wife's hobby and I am just a spectator. She gets all suited up to screw around with the hive but the Bee's are usually pretty docile. She has yet to smoke them to calm them down during the times she is working on or checking the hive. When the hive is all buttoned up and things are going as they normally would I can literally stand right next to the hive without a suite and the bee's could care less about my presence. They are busy coming and going as they do their thing.

[SamuraiCO]

That is great. You are right with being able to sit outsde the hive and watch the girls come and go. My HOA in Parker made me get rid of my hive. I still have lots of bees in my yard go figure.

[rbeau30]

That is great. You are right with being able to sit outsde the hive and watch the girls come and go. My HOA in Parker made me get rid of my hive. I still have lots of bees in my yard go figure.

If they can't see it....

My covenant docs do not mention Apiaries at all. I'm going to have a problem (and them a lawsuit) if they change the rules after I bought a house here.

[SamuraiCO]

Getting ready for winter. I wanted to install the in the frame feeder and put some sugar water in it. Both hives had 8 really full frames of honey and pollen. I took out two frames from the top that they had started some comb and collected nectar and pollen and put them in the lower hive body swapping them out for frames that were empty. Here you see my buddy pouring in the sugar water. The bees have a plastic lattice they climb on inside those holes that allow them to follow the level down. Throughout the winter we will supplimental feed them and this makes it really easy. I don't want them to starve like they did last year. Inspection showed them in good shape. Hoping the best they survive the winter and I can collect honey next year.

I smoked the bees and the cooler weather drove them into the hive that is why you don't see many bees in the picture.

[SamuraiCO]

Checked them last Sunday. Both hives still alive and some workers were coming and going. There was some die off with a pile of dead bees in the front of each hive. That is normal for this time probably most of them were drones (males) that have outlived their usefulness and are not fed and die or older worker bees that the other workers cleaned out of the hives.

We topped off the in the hive feeders and I also put some pollen patties in each hive. They both still look good. Wrapped them both back up and then we shot our 1911's for a bit. Love having a friend with a shooting pit on his property.

[Irving]

Cool, thanks for the update.