My main goals I hoped to accomplish were 1) putting a screened bottom board on my agressive hive, 2) put a 4th super on the aggressive hive, and 3) add 3rd super on the new hive.
Here's Seth smoking the bees in preparation for tearing the hive down.
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| From 2014-04-07 |
Here's the new bottom board we put on. For those of you who don't know what a bottom board is, it's the new, unpainted wood on the bottom of the hive.
There are several reasons this needed to be done. The first was for Varroa mite control. Apparently, when Varroa mites are born, the larvae fall through the screened bottom board and die in the grass below. If the bottom board isn't screened the larvae get a chance to grow and will climb back up into the hive and will keep infecting the bees. Varroa mites are an insidious problem that many blame for the mysterious drop in the bee populations.
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| From 2014-04-15 |
The hive is looking healthy. Lot's of bees crawling all over.
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| From 2014-04-07 |
Inspecting the frames. This one hasn't produced much yet.
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| From 2014-04-07 |
When we pulled the top super, we found some drone larvae forming in the burr comb in between the supers. I was a little freaked out at first because I thought they were queen swarm cells, but a guy at the ag center got me straightened out.
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| From 2014-04-07 |
Thank goodness for my new veil and jacket. My hives seem to be really aggressive and attack the crap outta me whenever I open the hives up. However, with my good suit, I'm usually able to make it through without getting stung. Here I am inspecting a brood frame.
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| From 2014-04-07 |
One more shot of the drone larvae. I guess it's better to accidentally kill drones than workers.
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| From 2014-04-07 |
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