We have had some pretty poor weather since the last blog post. We all knew that the good times could not last. We are still experiencing some pretty poor weather, with cold nights and not so warm days.
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| Bee waters near the hives |
The bees were spending a lot of time around the house looking for water; especially when it was really dry out. So I took a couple of old chicken feeders; threw in some stones and topped them off with some clean water. These waterers are located close to the hives and more importantly, away from the house.
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| Dandelion bloom: pollen coming in! |
The dandelion flowers are in full bloom. The colour of the dandelion pollen is just striking. The bees are quite happy that I have held off on cutting my lawn so that they can get lots of pollen to feed their young.
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| Excellent brood pattern: Especially for the time of year |
One of my more populous hives has some pretty nice brood pattern, especially for this time of the year. It has been quite poor, (freezing and wet) weather for the last long while and they were still able to keep excellent brood.
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| Lots of bees |
The hives were just boiling over with bees. This means that when the honey flows begin, I better be ready to add the supers.
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| Egg dangling out! What the heck? |
I found this queen running around on the frames with what appeared to be an egg partially hanging out. It was super weird. She actually walked a fair bit before it "fell" out. I looked in other cells and her pattern was decent and she did not have any doubles.
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| Monster sized queen. Significantly larger than others. |
I cannot get over the size of this queen. She is quite a bit larger than the other queens. She also has darker colouration. This hive is doing quite well.
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| Bottom board cleaning: chalkbrood |
I took apart the one hive because it seemed to have a lot of chalkbrood on the bottom board. It was pretty horrible. The hive stand is pretty rickety, and the hive appears to be sloping backward, so the moisture builds up and does not go down and out of the hive. This queen also has poor brood pattern (due to chalkbrood). It had poor brood pattern last year as well, I am going to have to replace this queen.
