Booming

I went to an open hive at the Honey Exchange last Saturday to maybe learn more about what to do this time of year. Phil Gaven was checking a couple of weak hives, however, so I did not learn much in the way of new stuff. I did learn that Phil is using screened bottom boards. That is different from what Larry suggested. Also he keeps the entrance reducer on his hives--or at least the weaker ones in the back of the yard. I did collect my courage to venture into my one hive yesterday. 

The hive is booming! The noise of activity is almost a roar. I did not see the queen, but I did see eggs, larvae and capped brood. The bottom box was mostly pollen and nectar. The next 3 boxes had some brood in each of them, and the top box was mostly nectar. I saw one swarm cell that was started. I scraped it off. The boxes were almost too heavy to take off, and they were definitely too heavy to put back on. I had to pull 4 frames and put them into the bee brief to get the top 2 boxes back onto the stack. There was some burr comb that was broken when I pulled the boxes, but it wasn't too bad. I took off the Hop Guard finally. It was pretty much shredded, and the shreds were on the bottom board under the screened board. I was afraid that the pile was from cappings and that the hive had been robbed, but that was not the case. I saw no evidence of robbing. I got stung once. Not bad for the number of bees. Hopefully the queen was unhurt by my manipulations. I did not see any bees with the chronic paralysis virus, but I did see one drone with malformed wings so the hive does have virus issues. I think as long as the mites are suppressed the hive can survive the viruses. I'm going to keep to the Hop Guard and fumagillin and hope that the bees build resistance to the viruses over time.

I am thinking of putting follower boards in at 1 and 10 to lighten the load. I was also reading a post by Michael Bush that suggested making a split by "dealing out" boxes. Put out a bottom board next to the existing hive and split up the boxes: one brood for stack 1, one brood for stack 2, one food for stack 1, one food for stack 2, etc., and finish with a new empty box on each stack. The queen will wind up in one stack and the hive will make a queen for the other stack. He advocates being a lazy beekeeper and minimizing painting equipment, searching for the queen, administering medications, and dealing out splits. Getting the most bang for your buck on time spent on the hives and letting the bees lead. I don't know if it is too late to make a split or not. I don't really know how to harvest frames yet either. This weekend there is another open hive with Larry Peiffer in North Waterboro. The first time it's actually close to home. I am planning to go and ask questions about harvesting. Last week's open hive did not have enough bees or provisions to discuss harvesting. I will decide on the split this weekend. I think I will try since I'd like to have 2 going into the winter.