Annabell is alive!

We checked on the hive today to make sure that none of the comb fell with the heat. Just as we opened the window we saw Annabell crawling around the end of one of the combs. So, we know that she is alive. For those of you who don't know Katie named the queen Annabell. Here are a couple of pictures of the progress on the comb.

Building Comb

The Bees are busy building comb now. It has been pretty wet here lately but I am surprised how much the bees are flying in the rain. I thought that I had read somewhere that they don't go out in the rain but that doesn't seem to be true either. Maybe they just don't go out in heavy rain. Katie stuck here hand in the hive and got a couple of pictures from the back of the hive facing the entrance. Looks like the bees have the first 7 or 8 combs about 75% of the way across the top bars.

Back on track

The bees left the back wall of the hive and returned to building comb from the top bars. I still don't know if the queen is in there, but there was a lot of activity today. I took the cork out of the second hive entrance today because there were so many bees coming and going today.

Removing the fallen comb

So what I had read about moving fallen comb to the back end of the hive turned out not to work in my case. Apparently everything you read on the internet isn't true.I watched for a couple of days but my bees just attached the fallen comb to the bottom of the hive and then started to fill the comb with pollen. Also, the queen seemed to be spending all of her time on this fallen comb. We decided we had to remove it so that the bees returned to building comb from the top bars. I opened the hive up and used the spatula again to carefully scrape the comb from the bottom of the hive and remove it. I am worried that there is still a bunch of bees hanging on the back wall of the hive instead of being with the rest of the bees near the hive entrance. We did not see the queen after removing the comb, but I am hoping that she moved over to the main bunch of bees and is in there somewhere.

Fallen comb

We waited 3 days and then slid the top bars apart to pull out the queen cage and see if she had been released yet. I slowly slid the top bars apart and then heard a "Thud". I couldnt see what it was because of all the bees in the way. I opened the window up and saw two decent size combs laying on the bottom of the hive. After thinking about what to do I reached in and grabbed one that I could get a hold of, but it was so soft that I almost couldnt even drag it over. There was no way to get the second one so my wife ran into the house and came back with a spatula. I was able to carefully slide it under the comb and get it out of there. I had read somewhere on the internet that if you had comb that dropped and you couldnt get it back on the top bar (there was no way with these combs because they were so new and soft yet) that you should just move them to the back of the hive and let the bees empty them, so thats what I did. The video cuts off when Katie had to start helping me get the comb out of the one end.

Checking out the hive in the evening

We had to go out late in the evening and check out the hive to see what was happening in there.

The bee feeder...AKA - The Deathtrap

It only took the bees about 5 mins after closing up the hive to figure out how to get through the tubing and into the feeder. They flew right onto the board that I had made to float on top of the syrup and began feeding. The only problem with the set up was that they could not figure out how to get back out. They would try to get out and then fall into the syrup. They would crawl back up onto the board and try again only to end up in the syrup again. I watched this for about 10 mins and then decided to rescue the sugar coated bees and dismantle the feeder. My brother mentioned that it was kind of similar in design to the wasp traps that you screw onto a 2 liter bottle, the bees get in but they cant get out.

Bee Day!

Tuesday May 10, bee day! Went and picked the bees up today. Lots of bees flying around but no one was stung while we were there. According to the people there it had only been about 48 hours since the bees were put into the boxes. Installing the bees went about as planned. I hung the queen cage between the # 5 and # 6 top bar. After I shook the bees in I leaned the box against the hive leg and all of the rest of the bees began to climb the leg and get into the hive. I wore the bee veil and my gloves, but I really did not have to. The bees were not interested in us at all.

Installing the feeder

Took the feeder to the hive today and installed it. Not much to installing when you just have to set it on top of the hive and push the hose adapter into the hive. I kind of wonder though if raccoons will jump up there and open it up.

Building the feeder

So the bees are coming next week Tuesday May 10. Now that it is that close I figured that i better build some type of a feeder. I figured I should make something cheap, so i bought a couple of feet of clear tubing at Lowes and a couple of one inch hose adapters. I am planning on sticking the hose adapter into the one inch hole that I have in the hive and the other end into a one inch hole drilled in the plastic tub. I have an old piece of pine board in the plastic tub with some holes drilled through it for the bees to feed at. My hope is that the bees will go through the tube to the feeder and I won't have to open the hive to refill the feeder.