Hive one is looking so much better these days, lots of brood in the cells, lots of bees on the frames. they are about filling two boxes now, they are getting close to secure for the winter. We spotted our first hive beetles, so we need to think about ways to handle that pest.
Hive two got a bit bothered when we opened it up. They had not done anything with the 3rd super, no comb drawn at all, so we removed it. They still have very full heavy frames in the 2nd super. We did not see any brood in the 2nd box, and we did not get into the bottom box because they came out to harass us. I got stung on the hand, through the seam of my glove. There were hive beetles, and also some kind of wood roach.
We are still feeding sugar water in 1:1 ratio (cup sugar to cup water) as that ratio stimulates brood rearing. They are taking a quart jar each hive, in less than a day. We will switch to 2:1 for heavier syrup in mid-September to load them up even more before the winter. We are interested in some of the vitamin or essential oil supplements, we may pick some up at bee supply when we go get the mite-away strips, to knock back the varroa mites before their numbers increase. We've also seen some ants getting at the sugar water, and one of the hives had some insect drill a hole into a frame - it had been propolized in place by the bees.
We went to a PWRB fall refresher meeting on 8/12 to listen to re-learn things to do to prepare for winter. It was nice, and we plan to get to more club meetings.
