Andrew’s Bee Blog

I got into both hives on Friday. They are both looking great. The Package Hive is just starting on the third box. They have filled up the empty frames on the lower two supers. I could see lots of eggs and larva. I think the queen is doing good. It would be good to leave them alone for 2-3 weeks while they work on that 3 super.
The Swarm hive is doing great also. They have completely filled all the frames in the second super. We added the third super to the hive. At this rate, they will have the third filled in another two weeks. I am impressed how fast they are moving. I guess because they started with so many more bees than the package, they have been able to catch up and will pass them. I have to comment on the black foundation…I love it. I was showing my dad the eggs and it was so easy to pick out the eggs against the black background. The bees don’t seem to mind the plastic at all. Its plastic from now on for me!

On Monday, I made an attempt to fix one of the super hive bodies on the swarm hive. One of the corners was coming apart. It had split far enough that the bees had started using it as an entrance. I took some wood glue and wiped it into the joint and then took some bar clamps to push it back together. The bar clamps were to short, so I had to use both of them on one side. This seemed to work, and then I used a tie down strap around the box to get the other direction.
I came back Tuesday night to check on it. It seemed to have took. I took off the clamps and straps. I will check it next time I get into the box.

I got into the swarm hive yesterday. Everything looked great. The Bees have completely filled the lower super and have pulled out comb on 5 of the 9 frames in the upper super. I still have the in hive feeder in the upper supper, but they have hardly used any of the syrup. I used the black plastic foundation in the wood frames in the upper super and the girls have not minded them over the wax foundation. I think I will have to put another super on next week. That will be awesome to already have a honey super that I will be able to extract. The swarm seems to be doing great. They are super productive, even more so than the bee package. At this rate, they will surpass the package hive at Emmy’s house.
I did notice that they are more aggressive than the package bees. They could be a different breed, or it could just be the shear number of bees. The bees react to me much more so than the package hive, in that I notice when I am holding a frame the bees are very sensitive to my breath. I just found this interesting.