I didn't check the Italian hive since they seem to be doing well. I'll check their bucket of syrup this weekend.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Moving day!
I moved 15 frames from the Russian hive into 3 nuc boxes. They hadn't started drawing comb on 5 of their 20 frames so they won't miss them. Now the frames that they ARE working are stacked vertically with the 2 frames of brood in the middle of the middle box. I did the move on Thursday, Oct 10, and gave them a new bucket of syrup, too. I think this is the best I can do for this hive.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
More Syrup!
I put another bucket of syrup on the Italian hive yesterday, Oct 8.
I will put another bucket of syrup on the Russian hybrid hive tomorrow, Oct 10.
All done with fall medications.
I will put another bucket of syrup on the Russian hybrid hive tomorrow, Oct 10.
All done with fall medications.
Saturday, October 5, 2013
Last Medications
On Thursday Oct 3 I took a look in the hives.
I checked the Apiguard trays, and they were not empty yet so I put what was left back into the hives. I moved the feeding shim to the top of the hive with the syrup bucket and put the Apiguard tray on top of the inner cover so the bees can walk across it when they go to get syrup. I removed the top boxes from both hives since the bees were not making any significant inroads into filling those boxes. They were just empty space which will not help them stay warm this winter.
The Italian hive has pollen in the bottom box and a little brood. Lots of space left to fill so they did not need the top box. The middle box has brood, honey and pollen and is mostly full. The top box has a little brood, but mostly honey. This hive looks strong, but when I put the syrup bucket on top I think I see robbers hovering around so I blocked all entrances except the bottom one. Today I noticed the bees have worked to open all of the entrances again so maybe I'm just paranoid.
The Russian hybrid has pollen in the bottom box and lots of space so they did not need the top box. The other box has a little brood (really not much, I think the queen is stopping), pollen and honey. This box is almost full. If the hive can survive the winter on two boxes I think this hive is OK. I have been debating whether to put them into the nuc box or not. Is a vertical stack of 15 frames better than 20 frames organized into 2 horizontal sets of 10 frames?
I checked the Apiguard trays, and they were not empty yet so I put what was left back into the hives. I moved the feeding shim to the top of the hive with the syrup bucket and put the Apiguard tray on top of the inner cover so the bees can walk across it when they go to get syrup. I removed the top boxes from both hives since the bees were not making any significant inroads into filling those boxes. They were just empty space which will not help them stay warm this winter.
The Italian hive has pollen in the bottom box and a little brood. Lots of space left to fill so they did not need the top box. The middle box has brood, honey and pollen and is mostly full. The top box has a little brood, but mostly honey. This hive looks strong, but when I put the syrup bucket on top I think I see robbers hovering around so I blocked all entrances except the bottom one. Today I noticed the bees have worked to open all of the entrances again so maybe I'm just paranoid.
The Russian hybrid has pollen in the bottom box and lots of space so they did not need the top box. The other box has a little brood (really not much, I think the queen is stopping), pollen and honey. This box is almost full. If the hive can survive the winter on two boxes I think this hive is OK. I have been debating whether to put them into the nuc box or not. Is a vertical stack of 15 frames better than 20 frames organized into 2 horizontal sets of 10 frames?
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