Yes, I am excited about that fact since I haven’t done an inspection since my last post. I fed both hives on Friday, July 9th, and then I left them to their own devices until today. I stepped on a rock and rolled my ankle the last time I went down there. I had plans to go see my parents, aunt, sister and her family in the middle of this last week. I wasn’t going to risk hurting my ankle again as I had no plan C.
I’m getting to where I don’t know what to do about how fast one of my hives is growing. Frigga already has 2 deeps and I took a peek inside the top one before I added syrup to their feeders and each frame is full. I know I need to do an inspection, but we’re supposed to be in a dearth here by now, but the girls are still hauling in pollen!
Two girls in the middle with nice, thick pollen pants on! And maybe one with pollen pants landing? I’m just happy to see there are some resources still out there for them!
I’m just doing a short post today since I haven’t posted in probably way too long. The forecast for the week has changed so many times in the past few days, I won’t believe it’s going to be a nice day for an inspection until it happens. I’ll be posting about each hive separately when I do that because I’ve decided my heat intolerance is so bad that staying outside for two hours in my bee suit, even though it’s designed to be cooler than a regular bee suit, it is still hella heavy and hot.
This is all I have for now. I still have bees in both hives. Sometime this week I’ll learn whether both hives still have queens. As always, if you have any questions, just ask! If i can’t answer them, I know people who probably can!
Yeah, it’s been a while. I did an inspection June 24th, but I could not get hardly any pictures. The main reason I did the inspection was to check the queen cups in the Frigga hive. Spoiler alert, they’re just cups. They weren’t getting ready to swarm or anything. Though now, they have 5 cups in the hive, all on different frames. The only thing interesting from that inspection was the bumblebee who tried to get into the Frigga hive through the front door. She was a bit too big to fit through the honeybee sized openings on the hive. She’d probably fit if I had the queen door open on one of the vent sites. Good thing I don’t have those open!
Miss Bumblebee flying back to her hive. My bees ignored her except when she flew a little too close to the entrance. Thank goodness she stayed away from Galadriel! Those girls would have chewed her up and spit her out!
Yesterday, July 3rd, had the most perfect weather for inspections. We had clear, blue skies. It wasn’t overly hot, not that it matters with where our hives are located. If there’s a breeze, I rarely feel it. My son, T, played photographer yesterday. I have SOOOOOOOO many AWESOME pictures to share!! He did a fabulous job getting pictures of Frigga for me. He left before I got into the Galadriel hive. They weren’t as hateful yesterday, but they did get irritated and when they refused to move so I could put the second deep back on and, well, all Hades broke loose. I have one picture of Galadriel. Two pictures. T took a pic of the landing board.
Galadriel’s landing board prior to starting inspections. There is still pollen and I believe some nectar coming in, but I’m feeding anyway to help get the top deeps filled with comb.Top bars of the bottom deep of the Galadriel hive. I swear 80% of the bees were in this box. I don’t know why they don’t like the top deep.
In the Frigga hive, the queen has moved into the top deep and has started laying there. They had several frames full of some gorgeous honey, but I’m leaving all of that for them this year. First year is a comb building year. Next year, they can make me some honey to share. Or not. We’ll see.
Can you SPOT the queen? Yeah, that’s her in the middle towards the bottom of the frame with the white spot on her back. Look at that brood pattern! Girlfriend is an egg laying champ!Capped honey, in the lower left with most of the rest of the frame fill with nectar. In the middle section there *might* be some pollen. Each deep has half plastic foundation and half foundationless frames. That comb on the right is mostly capped honey on both sides. There’s also some brood on the left. The clear comb on the bottom in the middle are bigger cells meant for raising drones. They’ll fill those cells with honey if they need to do so.One frame of pollen stores for Frigga. There were at least 2 frames like this. This is in the bottom box. They’re slowly but surely drawing out each frame completely. Since I leveled the hive, wonky comb has stopped being made. I just hope their need to put honey along the top edge of brood comb doesn’t bite them come winter.
See what I mean? Lots of pictures. These 7, well 6 since 1 pic was from the previous inspection, are just 6 of 40+ pictures T took. I managed to look at every frame in this hive yesterday. it had been a hot minute since the last time I did that. It was needed. Seeing the pollen and how much honey they have really set my mind at ease. I’m still putting 1:1 sugar syrup in their feeders, and I’m going to get a pollen feeder set up here in the next few days. I still feel better knowing there’s still food out there for them.
This comb had some pollen stores in it, but it was mostly empty comb. There were a couple of frames of comb like this; just waiting for Queen Frigga to come by and lay eggs for some more worker bees. Not honey bound and they have lots of room for expansion.
I may not know what the heck I’m doing as far as being a beekeeper, but these girls sure know what they’re doing! I make sure they have what they need and they are doing what they were born to do!
Drone brood on the left. Worker bee brood on the right. Worker bee brood with capped honey around the edges. Look at all my beautiful girls and future beautiful girls!More worker bee brood with some honey around the edges. The Frigga queen is an egg laying champ!
Like I said, I have A LOT more pictures, but I won’t bore you by posting ALL of them! These are a pretty good representation of how things are going in the Frigga hive. I hope she makes it through the winter because I am very much hoping to make a split off her next spring so I can welcome Darcy Lewis to the family!
Next time I plan to inspect one hive one day and the other hive the next day. Maybe that will help my recovering after inspections because I have become so heat intolerant after all my surgeries. Maybe breaking up the chore will help with that and help me feel fresh and confident getting into the Galadriel hive. The hope is there at least!
As always, if you have any questions, I’ll do my best to answer them. If I can’t, I know a group of people who can!
Also, HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY to all those in the United States. To everyone else, Happy Sunday! I hope the weather is perfect for whatever you have planned today! Until next time!!
I don’t have many pictures for this post. I got smart with my last inspection. I started with the Frigga hive. Those girls are so laid back and accommodating. I don’t know where they’ve been collecting their nectar from, but they’re nice and calm. Seriously, I could do a hive inspection with them without my bee suit and not worry they’ll sting me. I’ve been stung five times. All five of those stings came from bees from Galadriel. Nice, right?
The girls in the Frigga hive working to draw out comb in the second deep I added the week before.Top box off Frigga hive. The girls are gathering the bit of honey that broke open when I took the top box off. This is not what happens when I get into the Galadriel hive.
The two queen cups I found the week before and opened to make sure there weren’t larva in there were back. I’m concerned they’re trying to swarm, but swarm cells are usually found on the bottom of the frame. These are at the top. I hope they aren’t trying to get rid of the queen. She’s laying very well, and this hive is doing great! I did put some sugar water out last night, June 20th. Frigga did not care one bit their hive got opened. Galadriel, ugh, Let me tell you about her.
When I named these hives, I opted to name them after mothers in my favorite fandoms. Galadriel is Arwen’s grandmother. I hoped she’d be the kind, benevolent Galadriel we see dress the Fellowship in their cloaks and hand out gifts to several members of the group. Instead, I have the scary Galadriel from when Frodo offered her the One Ring. So, I have no pictures of inside the hive. The girls have forced me to do inspections wearing gloves. Apparently my iPhone doesn’t register my goat skin gloves as being allowed to open anything on my phone. Awesome.
The inspection of Galadriel. Goodness gracious. They do truly hate me. I took a look at the frames in the new box. Like Frigga, the girls are drawing some comb out there. I checked for the queen before I set the box on the ground and that little bit was enough to make me public enemy #1 with the girls in the hive. I only got to look at three frames before I smelled bananas. That means I irritated them to the point they sent out a pheromone in warning that I was going to destroy the hive. I cut my losses, closed up the hive, gathered my stuff and got the hell away those girls dive bombing my head. One was so mad, It followed me well over twice the distance they normally follow me.
When I added sugar water to the feeder, I had a couple of girls dive bombing my head repeatedly. Next inspection, I’m going to wear the gloves we bought to protect our hands at the beginning of the plague time. Supposedly the bees don’t like the feel of standing on those gloves, so while they won’t protect me from getting stung, maybe they’ll keep the bees from landing on me. If they can’t land, they can’t sting. I know it’s a bit of a pipe dream, but I’m going to try it. It’s the final thing I’m willing to try without requeening the hive. I don’t want to do it. Russian bees are known for producing more honey, and she is a champion egg layer like Frigga. However, I can’t risk that hive hurting someone. It feels like a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation.
So, that’s what’s going on with the bees in my world. This weekend the boy child and I are attending the field day being put on by the beekeepers’ club we belong to. I’m not worried about Varroa mites, but I do believe I probably should be scared of them. I’ll learn how to test for them and then treat them. After that, we get to practice marking queens. I hope I don’t need that for a while, but it’ll be nice to know how to do that as well.
Well, I took a video and tried to post it, but I’m too digitally illiterate to do it right now to figure out of to do it. Once I do, I have a lot of videos to share. I love watching them fly in and out of the hives. It relaxes me. As always, if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask! If I can’t answer, I know how to find someone who can!
I know I did an inspection a week ago, but I don’t have one to share today. On Friday, June 11th, I decided that I needed to at least give Frigga another box to expand into. Once I took a look at Galadriel, I decided I might as well give both master, egg laying queens room to expand into.
I don’t have many pictures to share on this post. Galadriel is my spicy hive. Those girls have proven to me I need to do inspections while wearing gloves. They learned first hand this isn’t a good idea. I’m not very graceful with goatskin gloves covering my hands. I didn’t squish or injure a bunch of bees, but they got jostled pretty good. Once I got the second deep put on and closed up the hive, I hoped the girls would go back into the hive. Nope! Those girls were super angry with me. I had to get ten feet from the hive to get them to leave me alone.
The true downside of all of this, I couldn’t take my gloves off to do an inspection of the Frigga hive. So, instead of jostle my gentle girls, I picked up the frame that had the queen cups on it. It had everything, minus the queen, that I needed to see to do a true inspection of the hive. I get the one frame I removed back in the hive and put the second deep on for the girls.
Galadriel girls hanging out on the landing board. Nice, white additional space added for them.Frigga with the girls hanging out on the landing board.
I haven’t been to the bee yard to check on the girls since Friday when I put the second strap back on the Frigga hive. I had to hurry because the guard bees that were going to sting me come hell or high water started on their dive bombing as soon as I entered the clearing. I hadn’t put my beesuit back on because I wasn’t going to open either hive. I figured I’d be safe. Those adamant girls proved me oh so wrong. I moved fast and got it done. I guess I’ll wait and empty the trays under the hives sometime this week. Maybe then I’ll have some more interesting pics of the girls for you.
As always, any questions, just ask! If I can’t answer you, I can and will find someone who can!
Last Thursday, June 3rd, I checked on my hives after leveling them on May 31st. They were level to begin with, but settling and the amount of rain we’ve received made one side of my hive stand sink a bit. I think that has had a lot to do with the wonky comb they’ve been building. The new stuff seems to be better. Yay. I will periodically check on that. Now, on to Thursday. I opened the top to check the feeders. Everything is sticky, so sometimes when I check the feed levels, it moves the feeder and the inside of the hive see sunlight. This does not bother Frigga, my Italian queen hive. Galadriel, on the other hand, has a conniption fit if they see sunlight. Even after getting Galadriel closed up, one girl would not let up on chasing me. She ended up stinging me on my left hand, less than a centimeter from my pinky knuckle. It hurt so much that I could not wash my hands or bend that finger without screaming in pain for the day. It wasn’t pleasant.
That little red dot is where that persistent girl got me.
I was hoping to do a hive inspection on both hives this past weekend. However, that did not happen. When the weather makes you believe it’s going to rain any second now, you just don’t want to risk it. However, since I didn’t see my Frigga queen during my last inspection, I really wanted to get out there. Also, I need to make sure I get second deeps on the hives if they’re needed and boy howdy are they needed!! I always start with my hot hive. I don’t know why. Probably because getting into it and over with means it’s not hanging over my head that I have to get into that hive next. They’re doing well. Galadriel isn’t bringing in as much pollen, but they’re building comb and doing well. They just hate me for daring to do what I can to take care of them.
Somewhere in the middle of that red area is where another Galadriel girl popped me. Also 2 more got the tip of my left thumb, but I think my callouses saved me as the entire thumb isn’t hurting.
At least once I had the hive closed up and their feeders filled, those girls stopped going after me this time. They calmed down and returned to business as usual. Thank goodness. Sometimes I get a real hot headed one who won’t quit until she’s gotten me, i.e. the girl who popped me on Thursday.
Now, Frigga is a completely different story. Those girls don’t get spicy unless I do something stupid like jostle a frame and hurt some bees or make them think they’re under attack. That anger I understand. Silly human upset the bees. No worries. I deserve their ire. That was definitely the case on my last inspection. This inspection, those girls were a complete dream!
The Frigga girls are propolising a lot! I had to pry the feeders off the hive with a hive tool. It is everywhere! On the upside, it smells like cinnamon and spice. I got it all over my hands today.
I was careful about moving the feeders so no bees got caught underneath them. That is one thing I do not like about these Apimaye hives; there is no other cover to put over the frames except the feeders and then the cover. I’d really like for there to be something else I could cover the frames with. In my inspection, I found the queen. There was so much brood! Both hives have started having some drone brood. Not sure they’re going to be useful at this time of year, but they’re both doing it. I didn’t find eggs in either hive, but I found the queens and saw larva in different stages of development. I couldn’t see out of my glasses due to sweat dripping on them, so I didn’t even have them on during the Frigga inspection. I’m not worried. Everything was in order.
My only other worry was finding queen cups. Queen cups are usually just the bees practicing to making a queen cell just in case something happens to the queen. Neither cup was sealed, but they make me a bit nervous. There were enough bees in the hive that six frames were solidly covered with bees. One side of the seventh frame was covered and was being drawn out. I don’t know how many foragers were still foraging, but there was a frenzy of returning to the hive as I was writing my notes. It started to rain about half an hour after my inspection was complete.
The queen cups are circled in red. I tried to get the girls to move so I could get a clearer picture, but it’s hard when you’re both the photographer and the inspector. At the bottom of the frame, you can see the tail of the queen. Isn’t she pretty?
Also in the above picture, you can see a close up of the worker bee brood. There is going to be yet another population explosion in the next week or so. In the bottom left hand corner you can see the drone brood. Drones are the biggest bees in the hive. The bees make comb that’s bigger in diameter than worker bee comb. When the queen lays an egg, she first measures the size of the hole she’s about to lay in to determine whether she needs to lay a fertilized egg, which results in a worker bee, or an unfertilized egg, which results in a drone. The comb doesn’t get drawn out deeper, so when they go into their cocoon stage, they bulge away from the comb instead of being relatively flat like the worker bee brood.
I never imagined either of these hives would be this far along and ready for more room a mere two months after starting from a mix of unrelated bees with a queen they were introduced to when they were all dumped in the bee bus. I don’t care for the temperament of one of my hives, but I went into it with eyes wide open. I was told Russian bees tend to be hotter, but produce more honey. I guess next year, hopefully, I’ll get to put that one to the test. At least I have one hive that doesn’t want to light me up every time sunlight enters the hive. Frigga is getting another deep on the next rain-free day. Galadriel is going to wait until after the next inspection. If enough bees go after me and die stinging me, the hive might not need more space!
As always, if you have any questions, just ask! I’ll do my best to answer. If I can’t, I know how to find someone who can!
I know I can swear up and down to update here more, but I received my second CoVid vaccine the week after my last post and spent a good week feeling miserable. I’m glad to be past it. I’m even more glad to have received it. Enough about the state of the world currently and on to the reason anyone visits this page, BEES!!
This little girl from I believe my Galadriel hive decided I needed help making my hive notes. She was very sweet.
My hive inspections last Sunday, 5/23, went well. I found both queens and the bees are building comb and bringing in pollen and just doing really well. They were both finally moving off the five frames they’ve been working on since installation in April. I was excited and decided to do another check in 7 days so I don’t miss my window for adding another box and frames for them to expand into. This bring me to my inspection yesterday, 5/30.
My Frigga hive have taken to propolising (pretty sure NOT a word, but I don’t care.) everything they can. It has a sweet smell that was very strong when I opened this hive.
Galadriel is doing well. Lots of different stages of larva and some capped brood. I swear, the second I move one of the feeders just a smidge, those girls start dive bombing my head. If I smoke them, they behave. If I walk a few feet away, they stop, so I know it’s simply defense of their hive, but wow, the second they see sunlight, they are in fight or fight mode. And yes, I did mean to say fight twice because those girls are itching for a fight! I don’t get many pictures inside the hive of them because I’m too busy trying to see what I need to see and close up the hive again.
My Frigga girls working on building comb on empty frames. The hive isn’t level at the moment because the supports have settled. Hopefully fixing that will fix the wonky comb they like to build.
Opening up my Frigga hive yesterday, 5/30, was a different experience from normal. They are usually laid back girls. I’ve done inspections where I forgot to put my bee suit veil back up to cover my head. The Galadriel girls were still kinda spicy toward me and dive bombing my head since I was still close to their home, so I made sure I had my veil on while I was going through the Frigga hive.
Frigga’s brood frame. If you look close, you can larva in different stages of growth as well as the capped brood.
I didn’t see the queen during my inspection and that makes me a bit nervous. However, I did find eggs, so she’s been there recently. This hive has a lot of wonky comb that I know I should fix, but I just can’t make myself purposely kill developing bees when it’s not hurting anyone. I suspect, and hope, she was in the wonky comb where I couldn’t see her. Frigga is going to need another box in the next week or so. Galadriel might take another week or two beyond that, but she might also surprise me.
Now, to the part where I was VERY glad I had to keep that veil up. In order to put the hive back together, I have to put the two frames in I take out so I can get into the hive. As I was moving those back to their spots based on the propolis, the girls lost their minds and got revved up. I didn’t smell bananas, which is what you’ll smell if the girls start putting out danger pheromones when they feel they’re under attack. I’m not sure what happened, so I got everything situated and closed up the hive. I might do small checks by moving the one feeder over the side of the hive they are only just now starting to get working on, but I won’t do a full inspection until next weekend. I really don’t want to miss giving them more space.
Honestly, I am still loving having my hives. They keep life interesting. They’re also exposing me to a plethora of ticks, but I’m slowly learning how to keep those little devils off me. Okay, well, any questions, just ask! If I can’t answer, I know how to find someone who can answer them!
I’m still here! Bees are still here! Honestly, everything is going great. Mostly. Mostly. If I say mostly great enough, maybe I’ll begin to believe it. I feel like a first time mom all over again, only I’m not getting up in the middle of the night for diaper changes and feedings. The worry about my girls (and a few guys) feels very similar. NOT at the same level, but similar.
I have a good reason to worry about them. On Thursday, May 13th, I went out to put some food in their feeders because we’re in for eight, twelve, eighteen days of rain. I don’t know, but I do know we are getting April rain in May since we got snow in April. Get your head on straight, weather. Anyway, when I entered the apiary, there were bee parts all over Galadriel and several of the cement blocks. I kinda panicked. What would do this to my girls?
Bee parts on Galadriel. You’ll notice the headless body on the i and c of ergonomic. My poor girls!
I sent a message to these fabulous people on the book of many faces. They assured me it sounds like a bird discovered the hives and had a little snack. It might look like a massacre, but it probably enjoyed, at most, ten bees. I don’t want ANY of my girls to become a snack for any birds! When I went out there moments ago, carnage is still gone! Yeah, so it rained yesterday, but I’m confident no more bees have become food.
Since the feeders are right above my frames, when I check if they need food, I move the feeder over and look down into the hives to see if they’ve started building comb because both hives are sticking to just one side of the hive. It’s odd, but they’re thriving. I’m not too worried about it, yet.
Look at these Galadriel girls working hard!Look at those fuzzy Frigga girls!
There are a lot of blond fuzzy bees in both of my hives. All that capped brood (bee larva in their cocoon in the comb) I saw in my inspection on the 13th is starting to hatch and I am so freaking excited! We have rain on the forecast every day for the next ten days, so I don’t know when I’ll get to do an inspection to see if I’m right about all the baby bees hatching. It’s one of those deals where I’ll just have to see what the radar tells me for that day.
I am really enjoying this new hobby! Any question, just ask! If I can’t answer them (and there are good odds I won’t know the answer) there are people I can ask!
Galadriel’s landing board. These girls don’t bring in a lot of pollen, but there’s one girl with pollen pants there.Frigga’s landing board. It’s always more active until I try to take pictures. Who knew bees were camera shy?
I had fully intended to open my hives and look in on the bees today. I last looked in on them last Monday, April 26th, to make sure the queens had both been accepted by their respective hives. Both were out of their cages and on the foundation frames their girls drew out for them. I didn’t check further than that, i.e. to see if they were laying eggs yet. That was supposed to be today.
So, what happened, Erin? I can hear you say from here. Honestly, I’m not sure. My videographer put his new monitor for his amazingly complex computer up on the wall so he doesn’t run the risk of doing something stupid like cracking the screen. (Can you tell I didn’t mention that just randomly? Yeah.) Once that was up, I lost him to a game of Minecraft. So, I took a little nap.
Once I woke up from that nap, people were getting hungry, so I ended up making more sugar water for my bee girls and chopping celery so everyone could put together their tuna salad for dinner. Once I did that the sugar water was cool enough to pour into the container to be taken to my girls.
When I arrived at my bee yard down the hill from the house, it was strange. My hives face different directions. The hive facing west was nice and calm. The bees were coming and going as they should.
My calm hive with bees doing what they do.
The other hive faces east. I don’t know what it is about facing east, but this hive has been more active from the beginning. They started bringing in pollen before the other hive. The reason I have more doors open than I sometimes feel is right this early in their time with me. This hive was very loud. I watched a video this week of a swarm practice. This hive sounded just like that. They’ve only been in the hive for a week and a half-ish. They aren’t ready to swarm, I hope!
There were at least two if not three times as many bees in the air as on the landing board.
The landing board was hopping! The continued through refilling their feeder. I didn’t open the hive completely, but I did move one of the feeders to take a peek inside. The bees are mostly on one side of the hive, but they are beginning to work on the other side of the hive. So, I’m not sure what was going on, but it makes me really want to get in there and see what’s happening with these girls!
Hopefully sometime soon I’ll have some video(s) to share with you on what’s happening in the hives. I’m anxious to find out!
Hello and welcome to my website! I know the url makes it sound like I know what I’m doing regarding bees, but I promise that I am learning as I go. I’ve read a book or two, and I attended a beginner’s beekeeping class put on by this group. I haven’t been a member long enough to attend a meeting, but those I met were very nice.
Bees from one of my hives keeping house and bringing in pollen.
I will have some video of me installing my packages into the hives. I don’t have any pics or video of me checking that my queens were released or checking that the queens had been accepted. I was excited to discover both of those things, but my videographer was occupied elsewhere. There will be video of me doing my first check for brood and pollen stores this weekend. I hope it’s as exciting as it sounds.
Welcome to my website. I’m immensely glad you’re here!
Also, I will do my best to answer any questions. If I can’t answer them, I will do what I can to get the questions answered.
