Inspecting my beehives…
May 4, 2011
Went out to the bee farm this past weekend to check on the status of my hives. Here are a couple of shots of me going through my brood boxes (I have 4) to look for my queens.
Here is a shot of one of the brood boxes. After about 2 months, they've managed to build comb and lay brood on about 4 frames. It shouldn't take them much longer to get to teh 8th or 9th frame, at which time I'll put on a honey super.
Here's me opening up another of the brood boxes. While the hat and netting are a must, I think I'll be losing the gloves pretty soon. They are just too cumbersome, especially when trying to pick up the heavy brood frames gently so you don't drop them.
Now I'm checking each frame to look for the queen. At this stage you want to make sure the queen is healthy and laying brood properly. Unfortunately, one of my hives was missing their queen. Something either happened to her due to weather or health, or the hive killed her. They were already raising multiple new queen cells, which is bad news. So all the new queen cells will have to be killed and a new queen introduced to the hive this week.
I will be transporting all my hives home this coming Saturday. So exciting! Two will be placed at my house and two will go up to our produce garden at North Haven Gardens.
Much more to come on the bees!
