Got the girls settled in....

Doby45 · May 02, 2009, 10:51:42 PM

Well my friend and I went down to south Georgia yesterday afternoon and picked up our 8 hives that were down there building up from splits that were done about a month ago. We have a good friend that has hives in the 100s and he allowed us to work his yards with him and in exchange we got the splits needed to fill our 8 hives. We have our hives set on pallets so we have four pallets with two hives apiece. When we got in to the Powder Springs area last night at 1am it started to rain on us just as we were getting ready to download the pallets (figures) but the girls were in very good spirits and gave us no problems at all.

We got into them briefly this afternoon just so that we could get a good look and see how the splits had taken. They are in double deeps because when we went down a month ago to install the hives we figured they were going to build up really fast and it would be necessary to have our own hive bodies down there to put on when needed. Well they all are to the point right now where that additional hive body is not only needed but being used. I would say out of the 8 we have 5 that are actively using that second box and if it was not there they would surely be thinking of swarming.

In hive DL we have 4-5 frames in the center that are totally drawn out on both sides and filled with capped honey. When we saw that both of our eyes got as big as saucers. We plan to get back into them next Saturday to do a more thorough inspection and possibly balance them some. We went ahead and put a gallon of syrup on each hive just in case, this week is suppose to be pretty stormy.

When we were working on them this afternoon there were moments of nice bright sunshine and moments of drizzle. The water you see on the lids in the photos is from the drizzle. We also have some bees with good temperament due to the fact we were in them pretty good this afternoon in the dreary weather and we never even fired up the smoker. Did not have any veil thumps and not a single sting, just a bunch of busy bees.

RayMarler · May 02, 2009, 11:22:35 PM

Nice looking there, looks like a great start for you!

slaphead · May 03, 2009, 08:40:22 AM

Hi Doby45,

That looks like a lovely site, welcome to Beemaster.

I'm intrigued by the white pails. Are you using them to feed through a hole in the top cover?

Thanks,

SH

Doby45 · May 03, 2009, 10:13:27 AM

Thats exactly what they are for. I got the pails for free from my local Publix and my girls and I cleaned them up. I drilled a hole the size of a milk jug cap in the top center of the top and about 25 1/16 holes in the lid of the pail. Invert it and cover the hole, WAAAALAAAAAAAA. Large, cheap, non-invasive, non-robbing syrup feeder. :-)

sarafina · May 03, 2009, 11:56:44 AM

I like it!

When you aren't feeding, do you just cover the hole with a rock?

vermmy35 · May 03, 2009, 12:04:21 PM

That is one nice looking bee yard you have there. Good luck with them.

Doby45 · May 03, 2009, 12:37:17 PM

Quote from: sarafina on May 03, 2009, 11:56:44 AM
I like it!

When you aren't feeding, do you just cover the hole with a rock?

I cover them with an inverted milk jug cap. Perfect fit, almost as if it was made for it. :-D I will get a pic of it with the cap installed.

Doby45 · May 03, 2009, 04:56:10 PM

Just spoke with my mentor and explained everything we did yesterday and so far with the move up. The only area of concern he had is that we did not confirm that each hive was queen right. He stated that we needed to make sure we got back in the hives ASAP and confirmed that each hive had eggs/larva/brood of some type. So I reckon we are heading back over and this time I am taking the camera, so we will have some more pics. :-)

Doby45 · May 04, 2009, 12:14:24 PM

My friend and I got into em yesterday and for the most part everything looked really good. The "A" pallet is going strong with 3 frames of brood and larva in each hive and plenty of honey and pollen supplies. The "B" pallet was more concerning. The hives had plenty of honey and pollen stores but we were unable to locate any brood, larva or eggs. The "C" pallet had one hive that was doing well with 3-4 frames of brood, larva and eggs. The other hive only had about a softball sized patch of eggs. We checked the eggs to see if it looked like laying worker, but the eggs were singles and dead center of the cell in the bottom so we will keep and eye on that one. Pallet "D" is going gangbusters with 3-4 frames of brood, larva and eggs. Hive "DL" and hive "AL" each sacrificed a frame of brood to the hives on the "B" pallet. We will go back out and check them in a week and see what is up with "CL" and the "B" pallet. The "CL" hive will get a through queen search and more intensive check for eggs and larva. The hives on the "B" pallet will be checked to see if they are pulling a queen cell from the frames we put in and possibly an intensive queen search. Maybe the "B" pallet queens simply have not started laying yet, who knows...

Oh yhea, got some pics and will add them later..

Natalie · May 04, 2009, 12:28:31 PM

Congratulations on your bees, that was a good deal getting to work the bee yard in exchange for some splits.
It gives you even more hands on experience.
I like the color of your hives, they look great.
Best of luck with them. :)

Doby45 · May 04, 2009, 12:37:21 PM

My 13yr old daughter was the one that spotted the paint. I was in Home Depot looking at some other items and she goes traipsing off to the paint department. A few minutes later she is back with a gallon of this paint and says "It is light, exterior and cheap so don't say anything about the color." Then she hands it to me and I see the color. I told her it was perfect and she did a good job. It happened to be an ooops paint and only cost $4.

Natalie · May 04, 2009, 12:50:06 PM

She did an awesome job I love it! Paint is so expensive now, you can get some really nice paint in the oops section.

Doby45 · May 04, 2009, 12:59:21 PM

Well my friend and I have decided that everything we have from this point on will be dipped. We priced out the materials and the ROI for dipping compared to painting and it just makes sense. Looks pretty too. So those first 8 purples hives will be reminding us years from now of where we started. :-D We have a few purple supers too, enough for each hive to have one.

Doby45 · May 05, 2009, 12:01:11 AM

Some more pics, I mean EVERYONE loves pics. Right?

My friend John showing off a frame.

Me putting the frame back.