Post winter Bee hive inspections!

Welcome! Today was an exciting day, we opened up all three hives and inspected them to see how healthy they were.  Each one was different. We started by gathering materials and starting up the bee smoker. That helps drive the bees down into the hive and away from your hands and tools. The other item is the hive tool, which you can see will come in very handy for Louise.

After removing the protective insulation, we looked to see what the bees were doing on each frame of beeswax.  This is the video I shared on Facebook of the initial inspection.

The second hive was a little different, as you can see here. The bees were staying in the top box, and not using the lower entrance, so Louise was trying to explain what happens then.  This one had a bit of an infestation of ants, which apparently isn’t bothering Louise so it must be ok.

In this hive, Louise moved around the brood and the feeder frames to make optimal growing space to for the bees. The bottom frames were empty of food for the bees. They used up all the reserves in the winter and haven’t been able to find enough flowers to start packing the hive full of honey again.  The frames either contain brood, which is where there are cells full of baby bees that the queen has laid, or food. Old honey from last year and sugar water that Louise fed them with before winter. In most cases there was only a little left. Perfect timing so they can make new honey and fill all the empty cells that fed the bees all winter.

This is a frame that has old honey stored still from the winter that has not been eaten yet. They are seriously low on stores.

In the third hive, we finally found the queen! She is marked green on her thorax by the people who sold her to Louise. Each year, they mark them with a different colour so other keepers know how old the queens are. It’s universal.  Not sure what 2020’s colour will be.

As we were checking the second hive, Louise put some honey on the frame and look at the eating frenzy! These guys are hungry. We also found in the third hive some mold on the frames on the sides, and Louise says a small amount is ok, because they can ‘clean their own hives’ but when you see a frame with this much mold, it’s time to change it out for a fresh one. Better not give any more work to the bees except brooding and creating honey right now....

All in all a great learning day,  and I just found out we are going to expand the three hives to six, and when we do that I get my own hive!!! I’m going to paint it and get a new queen and Louise is going to coach me on how to run the hive over the seasons. I am so excited. Stay tuned for some fun photos of the new hives, and you get to come and see when we do the swarming. Stay tuned! 💜🌈