Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Bzzz Bzzz Boom Boom

Hope you had a great 4th of July. My fourth included working our two bee hives (the Bzzz Bzzz part) followed by a nice thunderstorm where we lost power for a couple of hours (the first Boom part) followed by impressive firework displays by neighbors (the last Boom part).

Neighbors have been shooting guns and fireworks for several days now actually and the horses don't like the loud booms one bit.

Bees: Both hives appear to be doing well, at least to this novice beekeeper. Bees are really busy, shooting in and out of the hives. The bees are not "washboarding" on the hive and I do see quite a few honey bees visiting clover plants so I think that they continue to draw out comb an collect pollen and nectar and make brood and honey.

I built a shallow honey super and ten frames which was a bit of work. All the parts are assembled with glue and nails or screws. The hive bodies and supers then need two coats of white latex exterior paint. I installed the honey super so now both hives are the same, each one has two deep hive bodies and one honey super. Bees have not drawn out any comb yet in the honey supers so I don't know if we will be harvesting any honey during this first season. The goal for the first season is really to learn and develop a strong healthy colony that makes it through the winter.

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