Day 25 inspection photos

A few (2-3) SHBs seen in all three hives

Brood from the white plastic hive.

More brood, and the "empty" cells are hatched?

Queens are all in place.

Bad picture, (and $5 mis-matched paint). This is the nuc bottom board I made from lumber yard scraps (more later), and a few scraps of 1/2 plywood. I will staple in screen when I get it.

No dados required with the free lumber yard scrap. And there is room to slide in a piece of wood or plastic under the screen. Note the screen is yet to be installed. Couldn't find 1/8" hardware cloth locally.

This is a piece of 4' lumber used by the mills to hold the strapping when binding a load of plywood or other lumber. The steel strapping fits in the channel and keeps it from marring the product. The lumber yard gave me all I wanted after buying a piece of 1/2" plywood. Some pieced were basically dripping resin, others where nice and dry and straight. The piece here has one side ripped down a bit so that when when the plywood scraps are inserted, there is a not such a large gap under the frames (when set on the bottom board). I don't really know if this is necessary, but I was trying to copy dimensions from other bottom boards.


Here are the plans for the 5-frame nucs that I built. I found them on Beesource.com. I now have 12 of these, and basically only bought a sheet of 15/32" CDX. The ends (handles) are from the free strapping guide lumber scraps mentioned above, ripped in half. This makes a nice size hand hold with a notch for the fingers do grab. On three of the boxes I made permanent bottoms by cutting a notch in the bottom for an entrance, using some 1/8" hardboard I had laying around as a shim to get the bee-space right, and nailed a piece of plywood to the bottom. Once sheet of plywood wasn't enough for these three bottoms, but I had some scrap pieces big enough.

I haven't decided on the tops yet, but I'm going to price those sheets of blue building insulation as tops, with a brick above. My nephew used this material to make model airplane wings a few years ago, and I remember he set up a simple wire jig (and a battery) to make a foam cutter. I think I could easily rig up a jig that will shape it like a telescoping lid, insuring that water doesn't run in the hive. This may be too much trouble. I simple migratory lid may be the ticket. Whatever the case, I want to be able to feed through the top (credit to John P. at Georgiabees.com.

With only three hives, I have time for woodworking and such. So I figure that, while I don't really need all these nucs at the moment, its a good time to figure out what works, what doesn't, what to worry about, what not to, what is efficient and what isn't. Hopefully, later when the bees themself are taking a lot of time due to expansion, I won't have to waste time stressing about what can be built easily vs what to spend money on.

Here is yet another supercedure(?) cell. Should I be worried?

I didn't notice this when inspecting, but I noticed it when looking at the pictures. When looking at the picture of the entire frame, I swore I was looking at a swarm cell. Looking more closely, I guess it isn't. I would assure that new colonies are not very prone to swarming. Definitely not because of lack of space.







BTW, I have found that when working alone, taking photos is was a pain. I have settled on a way to take pictures when solo. I have my camera set to max-gazillion pixels, so that I can simply crop the good parts and still have good resolution. I set up a lawn chair facing the sun. I then set up my camera on a tripod, facing the chair but not blocking sun, as close as possible and still take a picture that is the width of a frame. I note some mark or line on the chair that is the center of the picture frame. When I want to take a picture of a frame or something, I simply set one end of the frame on the armrest of the chair (and centered in front of my "X" on the chair) and press the shutter. My camera is set on autofocus and autoflash.

Ready for anything

I read a Beesource thread yesterday about a cheap and easy way to construct 5-frame medium nucs, so an afternoon and $26 later I have 12 medium nucs. What I'm going to do with them, I don't know just yet. IF someone tells me about a swarm, I'm ready. Well, not really, due to the fact that I would definitely have to catch the queen with the swarm, as I have no brood to spare, much less a spare queen ready to go. Building the nucs was partly about trying my hand at constructing the equipment anyway. And I'm happy with the price and the quality. I do have a couple of "store-bought" nucs on order, so I'll compare them, and maybe modify my work next time if needed.
Bring on the swarms! Is it too late in the season to try to lure some swarms?

Day 25

I inspected the hives today. All 3 queens are present (I saw them all, and saw new eggs), and the brood seems to be coming along nicely. I'll post some pictures of the frames later. Two small bits of concern: supercedure cells and SHB.
I saw a few small hive beetles in each hive. I really don't know what is the point to be worried. Is a couple of SHB's bad? Or is 20 considered bad? I'll have to ask if I ever get to one of the association meetings. Or maybe post a question on Beesource.com.
I found a few more supercedure cells. I'll post the pictures later. I think the supercedure cells I saw a week ago are gone. Of course, I failed to note WHICH hive it was, but I'm pretty sure the cells I saw today were in a different hive. If so, the original cells were gone (All queens witnessed today were the original marked ones). Again, is this somewhat normal? I think so, but I'll have to study up on it.
OK, so I three hives; one with white plastic, one with black plastic, and one with wire wax. So far, the black plastic seems to be lagging a little behind, but I can't see any difference between the white plastic and the wax. Not really enough data here to make a judgement, but I think I have decided to use wired wax for the hive brood bodies in the future, and maybe use the plastic for honey supers (white). Once I have a number of strong hives, I may start to introduce some plastic via one of the hundreds of BeeSource techniques.
I replaced the baggies of syrup today, but it seems that the bees are beginning to lose interest in it. I heaved the pollen patties into the forest, I don't think they want it with so much real pollen around.
Oh, I did see a bee emerging from a cell today, so I guess the next generation is on the way. Maybe now the colony will start to take off. Might need to add the second hive body next week?

Supercedure cells?
Problem?










Capped Brood

Checked on the girls yesterday, and replaced syrup baggies. There are still a good 3 to 5 untouched frames in each body, so I don't need to add a second just yet. I found the queens, and saw new eggs in each hive. Also saw for the first time that the ladies have capped some honey, and brood as well. There appears to be some supercedure cells in one of the hives. Don't really know whether I should be worried or not.
I also saw a few hive beetles in two of the hives. I did some research and will have to decide whether to go for something like Apistan ($$$) or some other "approved" method, or to take some other route in dealing with the Small Hive Beetle (SHB). Of course, two or three SHB's may be nothing to worry about, although I didn't really expect to see any pests so quickly after starting the hive.
I ordered some medium foundation today. Since came up one deep body short, I'll have to use mediums as hive bodies on the third hive. That will work, I think, as I will use all mediums on future hives.

Queens are busy

Checked the hives on the 7th. All the queens were found, as were new eggs. One Hive showed pretty large pupae. This was the hive that freed the queen on their own, and also the hive that I used the marshmallow to plug the queen cage after pulling the cork out of the wrong side. Note to self: either do this on purpose later, or dig out some of the candy before putting the cage in a hive. The bees were still trying to free the queen after three days from the candy plug.
I also added new baggies of syrup to all the hives. They are going through the bags fairly quick. I've put about 25lbs of sugar on them in the first 10 days.
After the amount of comb built the first 5 days, I thought it would be time to add the second hive body. Nope. Not yet. Maybe next week. I did find that I am short one deep hive body. So I'll throw a medium on the top and figure out if and how to fix the mismatch later.