First Hive Inspection

Saturday marked 10 days from the arrival of the bees, so it was time to check in and see how they were settling into their new abode. (Special Thanks to Jason who agreed to serve as my photographer so that I didn't have to juggle bees and the camera to document this momentous occasion!)

Feeling like the Michelin Man

SUITING UP

While it is perfectly safe to work around the hive without any protective gear, when it comes to actually opening up the hive body and working on the frames, safety is important, so that means suiting up with the full suit and veil. Honey bees are very gentle, but it is important to remember that you probably wouldn't like it very much either if someone essentially ripped the roof off of your house while you were taking care of your babies either! 

8 frame Super with Plastic Frame

SUPER! 

Once suited up, it is time to gather up all of the necessary equipment. Obviously you want to make sure that you have everything ready to go. Since we're hoping that the bees have pretty much managed to get the hive up and running there is a possibility that they'll already be ready to expand into a new super. I'm using 8 frame medium supers which means that the box itself holds 8 frames or foundations on which the bees will build their comb. Traditional beekeeping used 10 frame deep supers, but those can be pretty heavy to move once they are completely filled, so many home bee keepers are now using the smaller and more manageable 8's. The only downside is that you need more supers. A normal hive will usually need about two 10 frame supers or three 8 frame supers. Today's task is to see how far they've come at building out comb on the frames. If they're working all of the frames, then it is time to give them more space to keep them happy! In my hive I'm using plastic frames in the hive body section of the hive. These are single piece units and you can probably see that they are stamped in what looks to be a honeycomb pattern. The frames are then coated in beeswax so that the bees will more readily accept them. The stamped pattern helps the bees by basically laying out the "road map" for how they should set up the comb. They will build perfectly aligned combs even if there was nothing stamped, but this speeds up the process for the. Think of it as laying the foundation for their buildings. 

Where there's smoke:

Lighting the Smoker Fuel

The other critical piece of equipment is going to be the smoker. Applying small and gentle amounts of smoke to the bees helps to disrupt their alarm / defense responses and keeps them calm during the hive inspection. In this case I'm using "smoker fuel" which is essentially compressed lint from industrial fabric manufacturing. It doesn't really hold an open flame but instead smolders in the smoker can and produces a gentle cool smoke. I've also filled up the large entrance feeder which is the yellow and black thing in the bottom left of the photo. It's full of a 1:1 mix of sugar and water and is what sustains the bees while they are setting up shop. We'll be swapping out the smaller one that we used for the last week. The bees go through a TON of the feed, so having a larger feeder will mean we aren't filling it up multiple times each day!

MORE AFTER THE JUMP!

Heading out!

With the gear in place it's time to head out and see how the girls are doing!

Smoking under the outer cover.

We start by pumping just a little bit of smoke around the entrance at the very front of the hive. Currently they have the entrance reducer in so they can only come and go from that small black hole at the left of the feeder. Then I lift the outer cover and puff a bit of smoke up under the cover. You'll see why in the next photo.

The inner cover has a hole in the center for ventilation and bees come up on top in space between the inner cover and outer cover. Here I've gently twisted the inner cover and I'm puffing some smoke gently into the hive. 

At the bottom of the photo you can see the other vital tool which is the hive tool. The hive tool is used to pry apart stuck frames or boxes since the bees tend to like to "glue" everything together and seal up even the smallest gaps or cracks with a sticky substance called propolis. 

The lid is off and now we can check and see how the comb construction is going. In this photo I'm giving them a little smoke before I lift out the frames to check them. On this visit I'm checking to see that they've let the queen out of her cage, that she's laying eggs, and that the bees are pulling out the wax on the frames. On this visit things are looking very good. There are a LOT of bees and they are working on both sides of all eight frames which is a very good sign. 

 

This is one of the outer frames. While it isn't completely pulled out, you can see they are working on it. The black foundation makes it pretty easy to see where they've built comb and where they haven't. At the top of the frame they are storing honey, and you can see that they've capped off a few cells meaning that honey is ripe and ready for storage. The bright yellow color is pollen that they've been collecting and storing. This photo isn't color corrected, it really IS that bright and shiny. Bees get energy (carbs) from the honey that they make and get their protein from the pollen that they gather. Since these bees are starting a new home from scratch they need to work pretty hard to build up a sufficient store of both pollen and honey to sustain the hive and feed the new bees that are on the way.

This is one of the frames from the center of the hive which has been fully pulled out. The bees raise their "brood" in the center of the hive, so this is where we want to check for eggs, larvae, and capped brood to see if our queen is laying and the hive is on its way. You can't see it here... but the signs are good. The cluster of bees on the far right are working on cells that do have eggs in them. A single tiny egg is attached at the very center and bottom of each cell. Luckily it is pretty easy to see them on the black frame. They are VERY tiny. the cluster of bees in the center of the photo are tending to larvae that are not yet capped. They are going in and out bringing them pollen to eat. The larvae look like tiny white grubs curled up in the bottom of each cell. Again, its kind of hard to see, but you can tell that those cells look very opaque white since the larvae are covering up the black of the frame. eventually the bees will cap off the larvae in the cells until they transform into actual baby bees. The translucent cells at the top of the frame are filled with honey. and they've capped a few. And again at the left you can see the bright yellow pollen that they are feeding the brood with.

 Everything looks good, and since they are using all of the frames front and back we will go ahead and give them another super to work in. The queen is out of the cage and laying away, so things are looking pretty good for the girls at this point. We'll give them a week or two to settle into the expanded space and then we'll look at adding the third super for the hive body. Once they get that all set THEN and only then we'll try for some honey production. Since they are starting with an empty hive this year, the amount of honey flow will likely be reduced. We have to let them build up their numbers and store up enough honey to sustain them through the winter before we take any for ourselves! Next year they start with the hive already more or less set up, so it doesn't take as much energy for them on that front and they will devote more time to honey production.

All set up and ready to go! Jason thinks it is starting to look more respectable now that the hive is two supers tall. We've taken out the entrance reducer and installed the large entrance feeder. 

Stay tuned!