Hive Inspection: 08-21-2012

TBH:

Let us all bow our heads in silent prayer as we fondly remember the Top Bar Hive.  It was a good hive, filled with the expectant hope of new life and a bountiful harvest.  Alas, it twas not to be.  Let us not focus on how it died, but on how it lived.  <end sermon>

Well, as you can surmise, the TBH is kaput.  Deceased.  Passed on.  Gone to join the choir invisible.  Pushin up the Daisies.  It is an EX-TBH.  Sorry, bad mimicry of Monty Python's dead parrot sketch.  Anyway, I'm not 100% certain on the prelude to its demise, but something happened to weaken the hive and that allowed a bunch of wasps of various sorts to raid the hive, killing most of the defenders and the queen.

So, lets look on the bright siiiiide of life <whistle>:

• The bees were "free", since they were won at the Spring MBA conference.
• They added to the learning experience of the beekeepers
• I was able to purchase and apply a disease test kit for both American Foulbrood and European Foulbrood which both came up negative  <whew!>
• Since the bees will no longer be needing their honey, it was liberated

Opening the Foulbrood test kit

Removing a dead bee larvae

Test results.  If a line shows under the "T" it is postitive

Green Hive:

Thankfully, this hive is still going bonkers.  The bees have only barely started to draw out the wax on the second honey super I added, so at this point in the year I won't be expecting to harvest anything from this super.  Anything the bees store here before Winter, they will keep.

The first honey super I placed on this hive has almost every frame 80-90% of glorious honey capped!!  I was ecstatic to see this!  I have heard that you don't often get a harvest during your first year but it appears I will at least get a little bit from this hive!  Not really sure how much honey to expect from one super but I ordered two cases (12 each) of 9oz glass Hex Jars.  I guess if I fill them all I can always use Mason jars or some other container.

Lots of capped honey

I have also been surprised at the vast amounts of propolis the bees on this hive seem to make.  I guess I'm not familiar with the different varieties of honey bees, but the ones I have seem to make a lot!

Lots of sticky propolis

White Hive:

I am still surprised at how hot it can get in a bee suit even when the temperature is "only" in the 70s.  Since at this point in my inspection I had sweated off most of my body weight, I made this one quick.  My friend Keith was also helping me and I'm sure he appreciated the expedited inspection.  I pulled a few frames finding the first still empty of comb, but the next two were increasingly built up.  Frame 9 had about 50% comb and Frame 8 had about 80% and Frame 7 had about 95%.......and the Queen!  I've gotten fairly decent at spotting her finally!  Can you see her in the photo?

White Queen

After a short debate we decided we might as well add a honey super.  I don't really expect them to do much with it at this point in the year so any honey they store will be for the bees to eat over the Winter.

Wow, I can't believe we are hitting September at the end of this week.  Fall is quickly approaching, as is the close of my first year of beekeeping.  What a ride!

As always, thanks for reading...