Inspection 6-20-09

Whew! After 2 weeks of off and on rain (mostly ON) I finally got a chance this morning to inspect the hive. I was worried about the hive eating all the honey they collected since they couldn't go out during the rain. But looking at the hive, there was plenty of honey in the bottom 2 brood boxes. Interestingly, they haven't even touched the top super yet. I am hoping they haven't robbed the frames of the wax to use elsewhere; if they do, then they won't ever build any comb there (they aren't interested in the plastic foundation; it's only because of the coating of beeswax that they build comb).

There wasn't much progress in the hive since the last time I checked, but that may be due to the crappy weather. I did see the queen, so she is doing fine, but I also saw lots of empty brood comb where there should have been eggs. I am supposing that since the weather was bad, the queen decided to stop laying for a while. I did see a lot of capped and uncapped brood, so the decision was recent (7-8 days ago). I'm hoping with some good weather next week I will see some progress.

I know one thing - I'm definitely going to get a frame grabber, like this:


The frames are so sticky with propolis that I can't grab them easily with my fingers. If I keep trying, I may accidentally squish a bee or 2 and make them mad. Plus they are hard to get out.

Also, a week or so I ordered some youth sized bee veils. I had a couple of helpers with me!!


Here they are all tied up in their veils. The boys weren't going to spend too much time in the hive, so a hive suit is usually not necessary.




Michael helped me smoke the hive a little.





Jacob even wanted to hold a frame!

All was going well. I made sure that the bee veils were properly tied, so no bees could get in.

Unfortunately.... I didn't pay too much attention to the boys' choice of summer footwear:


So guess what happened to Jacob? Yep - got stung on the toe. Apparently one of the bees took a little offense to being stepped on. So he went screaming onto the deck tearing off his gloves. Luckily mom was there to help him. So Jacob has been officially initiated into the brotherhood of beekeepers!!