This weekend I finished assembling and painting all of my hive bodies and supers. I assembled all the frames and put them in the boxes and my goal was to smoke my hives Sunday night and reorganize the hives.
I wanted to raise the Martha hive a few inches so that there would be more air circulating from the bottom. I wanted to add a deep hive body to all the hives so that they would have more room to store honey for the winter. I wanted to put a queen excluder on Martha and a honey super on top so that when she moved up I might get honey. I wanted to take pictures.
Well, things did not go as planned. Around 8pm on Sunday I got everything together, suited up and went back to the hives.
I lifted Martha up and put some scrap lumber under the hive so that she would get better air circulation, but the hive shifted a little and one side is not where I want it, but I did not notice at the time. The hive is fine, but I’d like to reposition the scrap pieces if I can.
I smoked her (and myself) before I started, but Martha is a little skittish. I lifted the top and there was no comb on the medium super that I put over the hive body. In spite of all the feeding and good thoughts, Martha has not moved out of the hive body. Remember that Martha was a weak nuc that I bought late in the season. She has been violated by kids with rocks and I have moved her to a new location. She looks healthy enough with new brood. and yesterday, in good weather, workers are returning heavy with pollen. I guess she just has a ways to go in order to catch up.
I went to Ethel, next. Ethel is my middle hive as far as strength. She did not increase as much as Connie in the Spring. She was late moving up into the medium super. I smoked her and lifted the top and there was no comb on the super above the queen excluder. I was all set to steal a frame of honey to see what it was like, but there was nothing there. The medium super just under the excluder was full of bees and comb.
I decided that I did not want to rearrange Ethel if she hadn’t moved up to the honey super. I will let her go at her own pace. About this time one of Ethel’s bees stung me on the top of the foot through the leather sneaker. Another bee got under the veil somehow and started buzzing around my face.
I backed off from the hives and got my bee hat off and released the bee without getting stung. I got all of my tools and boxes and frames back to the house and put out the smoker. I found the camera on the ground on the side of the path back to the hives. I could not have taken pictures even if things went well.
I don’t have good luck inspecting the hives. I invariably get stung. It must be my attitude. My attitude gets a little worse every time a bee stings me.
I never got to Connie, my strongest hive. I have to get to her, perhaps on July 4th. Connie is the only hive, as things are now, which is likely to make it though the winter. I have to get the deep box onto her so that she will make some comb and take advantage of the late summer flowers. The hives don’t seem interested in making new comb, even though I am feeding them large amounts of sugar. I have read that after the spring build up, bees don’t like making new comb. Perhaps the hives have all the comb that they are going to get.
