Tonight I took the opportunity to open up the two double box hives that I have at home. I knew that they were strong but I was surprised at how strong they actually are. The green hive was opened first and to my surprise, they still have a lot of their honey remaining and several frames of pollen. It is pretty incredible to see some full frames of pollen this early in the year; there were also some very young eggs in this top box. I lifted off the top box and it was quite heavy. I checked the bottom box and it was equally full of pollen and honey.
When separating the boxes some developing pupae were exposed. These are likely drone cells which are built between the cells. They are more susceptible to mite infestations and a good indication as to mite infestation. This calls for a mite drop count to see if I should treat. I did see some drone bees out already.
The white hive had a lot of honey in the top box but not as much pollen as the green hive. I lifted the top box off and took a look at the bottom box. It has a lot of pollen and a lot of room for eggs in the bottom. I did find some very young eggs in the bottom box. The box was quite a bit lighter so I decided to change the bottom box with the top box. The bees like to store their honey higher up in the hive, so this will allow them to use their stored honey to build up their hives and this also gives them room to store honey in the now emptier box.
I checked the week forecast and I saw that they are calling for rain for the rest of the week. So I called my dad and we decided to try to seed the yellow clover in the dark. Here is a picture of what the seed actually looks like:
The smell of the seeds was quite sweet, hence the name. We had some issues with the seeder. We used a battery powered seeder mounted to the back of an ATV. We then packed the field down. Time will only tell if the seeds were spread properly.
No comments:
Post a Comment