The weather has been chilly for the past couple of weeks, but Saturday was a surprisingly warm day. It was about 68 degrees, and the rain which had been falling the past day or so stopped. So it was a moist but warm time, and the bees took advantage of the warmth to go out foraging:
I don't see them bringing back any pollen, because I think the frost killed off all of the flowers. I put 3 jars of syrup on each hive last week, and have a pollen patty on top of the top bars. I see a lot of bees clustering at the upper entrance:
I suspect they are using it to get to the pollen, and maybe the syrup. I don't see any agitation, so there doesn't appear to be robbing going on.
Steven, it looks to me that you are running 2 deeps and then a kind of rim spacer or inner cover that provides an upper entrance? That piece of equipment is interesting. Above that I think you have a medium super which you probably have syrup inside? If so, is there a hole in your inner cover in the centre so the bees can keep going up inside the hive as well as the small exit hole?
ReplyDeleteI'm curious because I seem to have 2 types of inner covers - one with only a central hole and no exit and the other with an exit and no central hole.
Barbara,
ReplyDeleteI have 2 deeps like you see. Then next is my inner cover - it has an integral notch on one side as you see. During the summer, the notch is facing "up" so that it provides ventilation to the hive (air comes through the hole in the inner cover and then out through the notch). During the winter, the recommendation is to have the notch down, which provides an alternate exit for the bees.
Here is a picture not of an inner cover, but it shows sort of what the notch looks like.
On top of the inner cover are my 3 upside-down jars of syrup. There is an empty medium super box just used to surround the jars, and then the top cover is over it all.