Backyard Apiary

The weather cooperated and I was able to swap the outer covers and give the bees the candy I made for them. Antheia had eaten almost all of the dry sugar and Hegemone barely touched hers. I’m guessing that Hegemone had more stores going in to winter. I didn’t smoke either hive because I was trying to cause the least amount of disruption to the hive. It also doesn’t seem like a smart move to trigger them to gorge on their dwindling stores. Antheia was very tame, but Hegemone netted me a string. It didn’t help that Hegemone managed to glue the inner cover to the outer cover so I completely opened the hive and exposed hundreds of bees that were feeding on the dry sugar.

The sugar definitely absorbed some moisture from the hive. The newspaper that was put under the dry sugar was soaked. The bees were less than thrilled when I tried to remove as much of it as possible. Antheia now has an entrance shim above the inner cover. Hegemone required a shim below the inner cover (in addition to the one above) because of the remaining dry sugar.