I checked the club hives this afternoon and there's about 5 seams of bees in both, top and bottom. The super on the green hive was untouched, so I removed it. The super on the yellow hive was about 45% honey so I left it on for now. Both hives have "okay" heft, but not really as heavy as they should be. Both will need sugar this winter, unless Buckfasts don't consume much. This is my first year with Buckfasts so I don't know their winter tendencies yet. (My home Buckfasts have more weight in 8 frames.)
Both hives need an upper entrance and winter cover. If anyone has extra 10-frame Imirie shims and/or winter covers that they could loan/donate for the club hives, please bring them to Saturday's meeting. Winter covers will need to provide space for sugar disks, about 1 1/2" minimum free space above the top bars. If no one has any to lend, we will need to purchase some. (I can loan the one I'll be bringing to the meeting (the Honey Bee Ware two piece contraption) since my 10-frame hive is vacant. And I will get some of that free sugar from Fred for them. On another note, I removed all of the remaining feeders from my hives today. Since I hadn't fed any for a week I figured they would be empty and I'd be able to just pop them off, put on the inner cover, put on the top cover, and that would be that. The first one had bees all over the empty feeder and on the top bars. Didn't go so well. Bees everywhere in the air, bees on the ground that crawled up my pants legs, kind of chaotic. I did shake the bees out without getting stung, but lesson learned......again. So I put on the barn boots and fired up the smoker to smoke the bees down in the remaining 7 hives, but of course the other 7 had no bees in the feeders. I just popped them off, did a little scraping, and put the inner and outer covers on. But I was prepared! I did manage to get stung on a finger though. I picked up one of the feeders that had a couple of bees on it, gloveless. I guess I squeezed a bee and she did what she had to do. I took a Benadryl right away and it's not swelling or throbbing too much. And I'm sure the benefits of Bee Venom far outweigh any little discomfort now. Some people pay good money for what we beekeepers get for free! Just one more benefit of keeping bees. The hives are now ready for an oxalic acid vapor treatment, and the deep cycle battery is on the charger. I'll give them a few days to adjust to the altered hive configuration, and then any day after that that I have off, it's sunny, and it's at least a mid-40's temp. That's it for now. I hope to see everyone on Saturday. Gerard
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ECWBA NewsletterSince 2009 Archives
March 2019
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