Saturday, May 16, 2009

Saturday, 16 May 2009

The Young Beekeeper arrived at 7:30 a.m. or so, on a cloudy (rained earlier) cool day with a very light breeze.   The bees were not yet flying.   

1. Put the second brood box on each hive.   We placed nine frames in each box; interestingly, ten frames wouldn't fit. 

2. We didn't look into the lower boxes, except to withdraw the drone comb frame, and replace with a new frame.   (The Bradley/yellow hive had begun to raise a few square inches of comb on the surface of their drone comb; the queen had not commenced to lay there.)   We placed each hive's drone comb frame in each hive's upper brood box, second from the right (facing forward).  
 3. RE food, the Emily/red hive had eaten all of their sugar syrup (1 litre Mason jar); the Bradley/yellow hive had not eaten three inches in their bottle; the Young Beekeeper assumes that this is because they were stronger and had more honey to start with.   We put the yellow hive's leftovers into a shallow dish, and placed cedar scraps there so the bees wouldn't drown, and placed this on a stool in front of the red hive.    We decided to set up a checking-schedule to make sure the bees had all the food they wanted.

4.  We scraped off some burr comb on the underside of the inner cover, and reserved it for candle-making.  And a few scraps were left on the bottom of the wheelbarrow, which went to the house, and several hours later twenty or so bees were frantically attempting to rescue the scraps.   So, I wheeled to the hives, and gently tipped the tiny load on to the grass.  

5.  In the afternoon, the Young Beekeeper placed a pint feeder-jar of syrup on the inside cover of the red hive.  

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