Hive inspection 2/19/2017

It was over 60 for a few days so checked hives. Hive 1 still has a sugar hill, stores and brood look great. Quite aggressive which seemed unusual for them, but it is off-season and they haven't been touched for months. Will have to give them more frames very soon.
Moved more quickly through hive 2 which has 2 supers. Lots of stores. Burr comb with larvae. Bottom box was empty so we swapped and put it on top.

Hive loss?

We gave had something strange happen, a colony we thought was our best is now nearly empty. Only a few bees are still present, we could not find a queen. Did we fail to keep up the hive, were the ants too much to bear? Did they swarm off, how did we miss seeing it? We reduced to 2 boxes, gave a frame 1/3rd full of pollen to hive 1 swapping for a un-drawn frame. Took off top feeders, re-greased the stand legs against ants. On hive 2 we put the feeder shim on top and put in a block of fondant.  Small hive beetles were present, not very numerous.

Hive inspection

First time in hives in a while. Hive 2 has drawn and filled the super we gave to them in April. Added another super.
Hive 1 seems to be on the path to recovery with more bees present and better brood pattern. Queen may be slow layer or possibly not well mated? Bee buildup is so slow. Took away sugar feeder as it wasn't getting much use and too many ants came in. Its hard to keep a proper grease barrier on the stand legs, and grass grows up to make ant bridges.
We are sure we will be able to get a full box of harvest from hive 2.

hive check from 8/16/14

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.

Super on hive 2

Bought 2 more boxes from va bee supply, Added another 8-frame deep box to hive 2. We put a plastic queen excluder under it. Those bees have fully drawn the comb in the 2nd story and brood chamber is like a big half circle in those frames. Really looking good. Removed Boardman feeder.

In hive one, The queen was out of the cage, just some workers had got in. Pulled the screen off and released them. Did not add box yet.