Monday, May 10, 2010
Today's high 10c, low was 2c.The last three or so days have been very bad for forage, wet cold and windy, mainly cold.
I was getting worried about my bees especially the smallest hive I had just installed from a cut-out on the 5th of May. Today I was able to check the feed levels inside my three hives, and unfortunately the smallest one hive #1 was indeed dead, it was a small colony to begin with, plus I'm new to feeding my bees I had placed the feeder to far back (4 or 5 top bars) from the brood nest so they could not find it.. At least that's what I think happened, it is possible they perished before then and I didn't realise, robers tend to check even empty hives making the hive appear active when in fact it isn't.
The other hives I retrieved from the most recent cut-outs #3 and #6 are doing well, #3 was the largest and was installed on may the 3rd, this is the one I removed in the rain. hive #3 had almost completed one whole comb from what I could see, I didn't do an inspection just peeked around the feeder so they probably completed two combs since I couldn't see the front and I had left an empty bar up front. Anyway lesson learned keep the feeders close to the broodnest!
It is still early in the season so I might be able to get two nukes from these hives depending on how fast they build up.
This is my custom designed bee vacuum. What I did was build a fairly standard vacuum, the clear hose deposits bees into a screened cage, the vacuum is created by a small leaf blower in reverse there is a throttle to get the vacuum speed down far enough so it wont kill bees. The whole thing is fited into a bucket by a groove I routed in the lid so that the inside chamber is nearly air tight.
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2 comments:
i'm thinking maybe u are the supplier of sum honey bought at the vkh market. the label has caused me to discover this wonderful system of top bar hiving. thank u. u must have ur hands full with the extra swarms u saved. i luv the honey.
Yes I sold some honey for a couple of weeks at the vkh farmers market, cut-outs are time consuming and often exhausting but I love working the bees! :)
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