Friday, July 15, 2011

Splits moved into double boxes

I have moved the single box hives to their more permanent location. This was a feat in itself because it required me to pick up the hives and put them into my vehicle at night. In my first attempt, I was trying to staple a mesh wire on the entrance and it was very warm out and the bees were bearded onto the landing boards. I for some reason forgot to close my veil. Before I realized it, I had 5 bees down my shirt, 10 flying around my face under my veil and 10 stinging me in the face! To say the least, I hadn't ran that fast in quite a while.

Two days later I had a much better strategy. I added a box onto the bigger hive and took off the bottom boards; which left the screened board open. Later at night I just pushed the remaining bees into the hive (which were not many). The entrance was closed with a solid piece of wood and a little bit of duct tape. The hives were loaded into my vehicle and driven 7kms down the road to their permanent home.

Yesterday I was finally able to inspect them and distribute their single boxes into two boxes. The following pictures are what the hives looked like before I split them up.
A look inside the single box hive. Lots of bees
Lots of new honey/wax. Look at how white the wax is.
Almost full frame of honey. Bees are filling and capping.
The single box hives are now doubles.
 The queens are laying well in both hives. I was able to find the queen in the white hive but I was not able to find the queen in the green hive. There was plenty of young larvae in the green hive which indicates that there is a laying queen there.

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