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Author Topic: Hive inspection, deep into the hive.  (Read 2513 times)

Offline Understudy

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Hive inspection, deep into the hive.
« on: March 04, 2007, 08:24:56 pm »
Well it was long overdue. I did a deep thorough inspection of the main hive. It was long overdue. I didn't take any pictures.

The hive has two medums one deep and then one medium from top to bottom.
The good:
The hive is healthy, darn healthy. Brood is in all the bodies except the bottom one.
I saw a frame of nothing but pollen. Both sides. A little honey in the corners but it was 99% pollen.
I let the drone comb build between the bottom of the frames (permacomb) to the top of the next set of frames. Those cells invetably become drone comb. The deep box contains deep frames. All the mediums contain permacomb. What was the result of inpecting the cells for varroa. Varroa count for all intents and purposes was zero. I spent 15 min looking into cells pulling drone larvae and even some worker larvae. I found none. I am not so foolish as to believe there aren't any but I could not find any which is really nice. :-D
There are some nice honey frames. mixed in with the brood frames. I will leave those alone.

The bad:
I saw about 12 SHB in the corner of the top box. They are now dead. I saw one other on a frame. That SHB is now pushing up daisies.
I have some propolis building bees. They made prying apart the hive difficult.
My propolis is brown and white not red, mine has the consistancy of chewing gum.
There were open swarm cells on the bottom of about 8 frames. I think they swarmed a while ago.

The ugly:
I added a medium box with permacomb to the bottom of the hive. I took a pressure washer to them because they were being reused. I did not do a pretreat on them. I did this over a month ago. They have done nothing with it. There were bees on it. However not one cell had pollen or honey or anything. I am going to pull the box and replace it with a preped permacomb box and stick it on top. I call this a rejection. It is my first.

I still have deep in the structure. It is darn heavy and trying to take one of the frames out the frame started to fall apart. You try explaining to to a couple hundred bees that you are Mr. Fix It. They get very testy when they haven't issued a work order number.

Overall I am thrilled with the hive. I could consider doing a split. But I think I want to take this hive and turn them into honey gathering monsters.

Advice, suggestions, and good ideas welcome.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

PS. Somewhere along the line I broke a thousand posts. It gives me the title of Queen bee. A nice title but there is only one queen per hive and in this case I believe that should be John (beemaster). I noticed there are no drone ranks. I would love to be the only drone in the beemaster hive. So if that can happen awesome if not, I understand. My therapist and medication will help me through it.
The status is not quo. The world is a mess and I just need to rule it. Dr. Horrible

Offline Kirk-o

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Re: Hive inspection, deep into the hive.
« Reply #1 on: March 04, 2007, 08:55:07 pm »
Good luck with your beekeeping
kirk-o
"It's not about Honey it's not about Money It's about SURVIVAL" Charles Martin Simmon

Offline buzzbee

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Re: Hive inspection, deep into the hive.
« Reply #2 on: March 04, 2007, 09:16:48 pm »
And good luck with the medication.Liquid I hope  :-D

Offline Drone

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Re: Hive inspection, deep into the hive.
« Reply #3 on: March 05, 2007, 09:33:56 am »
Hey now!

I'm the only Drone in this hive  :mrgreen:.

-Drone

Offline Cindi

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Re: Hive inspection, deep into the hive.
« Reply #4 on: March 05, 2007, 10:58:17 am »
Brendhan, you are a beautiful writer.  I always enjoy reading your accounts of your bee experiences.  They are little novels in themselves.  Keep it coming.  It sounds like you have a great and wonderful hive.  I would use them for the monster honey gathering.  It would be a great event.

About those SHB, what a pest eh?  We learned alot about them at my course.  Even got to see some.  It was cool.

One of our American instructors was telling us that quite often the bees put the SHB into a "prison" we shall call it.  The bees actually feed the SHB when the beetle touches the workers' antennas and begs for food from within its prison.  Interesting eh?  The instructor did not really know why they would feed the beetles after imprisoning them.  Imprisoning them keeps them out of the brood nest where they do the most damage.

Now another of the students brought up a very good point as to why the beetles were so willingly fed.  She put out the thought that maybe the bees feel if they feed the beetles they remain happy and do not try to get out of their little prisons, hence little hive damage and no eggs laid.  So, that sent our instructor, when he returned back to the states, onto the new agenda of performing more experiments to see if this might be possible.  This small hive beetle is certainly a gutsy, gross little insect.  All have a wonderful and great day.  Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Offline eivindm

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Re: Hive inspection, deep into the hive.
« Reply #5 on: March 05, 2007, 12:11:00 pm »
PS. Somewhere along the line I broke a thousand posts. It gives me the title of Queen bee. A nice title but there is only one queen per hive and in this case I believe that should be John (beemaster).
Unless an old queen is fighting a new in a mortal combat  :shock:

Offline danno1800

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Re: Hive inspection, deep into the hive.
« Reply #6 on: March 05, 2007, 01:27:02 pm »
Brendhan, congratualtions on breaking 1,000! You are also BATTING 1,000 in my opinion. Thanks again for all the helpful posts you have put up on this site. -Danno

Offline Apis629

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Re: Hive inspection, deep into the hive.
« Reply #7 on: March 05, 2007, 03:55:05 pm »
Well done on the 1,000 posts.

As for the SHB, I've had my own difficulties with them.  They decided a stored super of mine that had leaked the PDB over a period of two months looked tasty.  Probably the best thing you can do to prevent them is to keep your hives in full sun.  Actually, in one yard, I have a hive in full sun, and the other in full shade.  I usually see at least 50 of the things scurry across the cover every time I open it on the shady one.  Hopefuly you did better than I and located yours in a more suitable area with better sunlight exposure.

Perhaps we should reinstate the "King Bee"?  You know, prior to a movable frame hive, the queen was often thought to be a king.  I'm still waiting for that swarm to emerge from a slaughtered bovine, lol. (Just joking in reference to incorrectness and outdated practices.)
(reference to a Greek myth stating that a swarm of bees will emerge from a large animal (cow or ox I think) that is closed up in a room for a fortnight)