Hungry Bees

The last couple days we had very wet weather complete with numerous lightning strikes.  Not at all conducive to working with the bees.  The frames that we extracted the honey from were wrapped up nicely and then placed in heavy duty plastic containers waiting to be returned to the hives.  I didn't want to wait too long before giving them back to the bees.  The comb is already on the frames and there's still quite a bit of honey and nectar on all of them. 

Cooling a batch of sugar water in the sink

Yvonne cooked up a big batch of sugar water that will be fed to the bees.  This time of year the nectar flow is very minimal and foraging is difficult for the bees.  The second nectar flow will start in a month or so, but until then it doesn't hurt to give the bees a little help. 

Bee Wagon loaded down

Once I got out to the Bee Farm I began building more frames to fill the honey supers that were to be installed.  The wet frames (ones from the extraction) would be divided equally between the hives so they all have a good base to start building as well as nourishment.

New Bee Workbench quite handy

As soon as I started taking the wet frames out of the bags, quite a few bees materialized to take advantage of the sweetness.  All sorts of uninvited guests also showed up to the party including a few wasps, flies and ants.  After the wagon was loaded up with the supers and feeders I started inspecting the hives and immediately noticed a problem.  The nuc that was dropped the other day had a large crack on one side (the back door I was wondering about).  Fortunately there was an empty spare hive available to transfer those bees into  even though their numbers were on the small side.  They were not at all happy to be transferred again but it had to be done.  For their patience I rewarded them with the biggest feeder we had.

Gargoyle hive with new honey super and feeder

Half way through the work I looked down and noticed I forgot to zip up my head net.  All along my neck was completely exposed and bees could have flown right up into my headnet.  Fortunately I was pretty gentle with the bees up until then and hadn't done anything to alert the hot hive yet.  I quickly zipped the headnet snug.   And then that little voice in your head keeps suggesting that one of the girls snuck in and was walking around on the inside of the headnet admiring the view from the inside.   For a few minutes I was absolutely sure there was a bee in the headnet and would have bet money on it.  It's really not a big deal because worst case scenario is you get stung once but still it's kind of a mental thing that noodles around in your mind while you're working.

Besides the weather cooperating, everything went off fairly smooth and the bees are feasting tonight after several days of being cooped up trying to stay dry in their hives.

Honey Bees from Nucs to hives ... their new homes

In the morning, the bees were active and all seemed to be quite healthy in both of the nucs.  I spent almost an hour transferring them from the nucs into the hives with no problems.  It was actually quite enjoyable even with my newbee apprehension for doing everything right.  In reviewing the video I took, it looks like I may have switched a frames orientation which isn't what you're supposed to do but it's probably not a show stopper.  I looked for the queen but didn't want to spend too much time doing that and closed up the hive.

The smoker kept going out so I need to get some pine needles to go with the wood shavings I had (from making the hives). 

A fun and educational day.  Reminded me of a playground full of children who are in awe of a new playground they inherited.  All day long they were zooming all around the mini farm checking everything out.  I love it.

But mid day I decided to give them a house warming gift of some honey we had. A large scale food fight broke out with all the bees as well as a couple wasps and other visitors.  In retrospect, that was probably not a good idea.  It looked to me like they were almost drunk on honey.  As I was eating my lunch a bee flew over to the table I had my lunch on and it almost looked like she was laying there taking a nap !  I know that's probably not at all what was going on but it sure looked like it to me.  She was there next to me for awhile. 

All the composted materials were transferred to the raised beds with some left over for potting and miscellaneous planting.  Good exercise was had today.