Update

Planned to drive to Cambridge to Better Bees today, to pick up a food-grade bucket (over which to place the fine strainer and into which to drain honey from the extractor and onto which to install the honey-gate), and varroa zapper to place in the hives after the honey-supers are removed on the Labour Day weekend, but an angel inspired me to check by phone in addition to checking on line, and sure enough they are on holidays until next week.

Removed the Crisco slathered file folder from under the red hive, and discovered debris concentrated in the middle frames, containing some varroa, plus a WAX MOTH wading around in the Crisco. Moth can't get into the hive that way because a screened base-board sits above the Crisco-space, and/but wax moth is the bane of weak hives; only way in is through the (guarded) lower entrance. Madly read up on wax moth. Wax moth would be a death knell for that hive. Noted that freezing kills wax moth larvae, and I suppose we could just freeze the two brood boxes for the requisite number of days, let the yellow hive clean up comb, and start fresh with a nuke (or make a division?) next year. Rigged a wax moth trap from a plastic bottle with a one-inch hole, a banana peel, a cup of water, a cup of sugar, and half a cup of vinegar, and hung it from the lath house gate. They're not supposed to be able to get out, having fallen in and enjoyed the fermented mess, but maybe you get more that way-- if you rig a Japanese beetle trap you get tons more than you'd have if you did nothing.

Removed the Crisco slathered file folder from under the yellow hive, and discovered a few varroa; didn't count them because that file folder is overdue to be removed. There were also seven or so workers wading around in the Crisco, which I knocked off onto the lawn. They must have entered determinedly from the rear; I wonder what they were doing? Zapping varroa? Also, why do they have so few varroa, and so many bees? Is that hive especially good at grooming?

Replaced Crisco slathered file folders under both hives, and must remove these in 24 hours and count to determine varroa levels.

Noted daily recently that both hives are flying hard; red hive has a clot of bees out fanning, which implies they have a laying queen (the hives will hatch their winter bees last week in August and first week in September); yellow hive seems in great shape.

This week, completed an entry in the Ancaster Fair one each for the Young Beek and myself; we must each take along a pint between 2 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Wednesday, 23 September. My thinking was, he might like to exhibit the yellow hive, and I will exhibit the red, but it looks as tho' the red hive will be lucky just to scrape through until spring, so perhaps he will exhibit one pint on behalf of our partnership.