The real problem was when I decided to feed the bees using an inverted jar. I took an entrance moving screen, laid it across the hive in place of a few top bars and then put the inverted jar on that. It gave easy access to the jar for the bees, but kept them behind the screen to allow me to refill the jar without crushing bees. There were a few issues with that. The bees kept climbing on to the top of the screen, which made it impossible to replace the jar without crushing bees and it provided a nice big opening for rain to get in to the hive. The inverted jar prevent the plywood from covering the screen. My original plan was to get a drill bit the size of the jar tops and use a piece of wood to prevent water from getting in. I never found the time to make that happen, so I cut corners.

End result was that all this rain that we’ve gotten in the past to weeks made its way in to the hive and had no place to go, so it just sat there. There was about 2-3 inches of water in the bottom of the hive with many dead bees floating in it. It smelled disgusting. I ran and got my drill with a 3/8″ bit to put a few drainage holes in to the hive.  I then spent the next 30-45 minutes scooping out the dead bees and using the hive tool as a squeegee. The cardboard follower had to be tossed and this explains why there was always a mass of bees on the screen. They were desperately trying to dry out the hive.

The main lesson to be learned from this is that you should always assume that water will find its way in to the hive and it needs a way to drain out.

The original split from Antheia that has been in a double five frame NUC is doing really well. All of the frames are almost entirely drawn out and the hive is packed with bees. Instead of giving them a third NUC box or swapping them in to ten frame boxes, I decided to do a little experiment. I had built a Kenyan Top Bar Hive (KTBH) to put at the Garner Community Garden, but the swarm didn’t stay and the hive has remained empty. I really want a KTBH, but the swarm season has passed, I don’t want to spend $80 on a package and cutting the wax from a frame and wiring to a top bar is too much effort in 80+ degree weather. My plan is to see if I can encourage the bees to build down in to the top bar hive. Two of the top bars have small pieces of drawn comb from the swarm that didn’t stay. I placed those top bars as the front two and left a gap between them. I placed the NUC hive on the Top Bar Hive so that the bees must use this gap as their entrance, which they are doing. Now all I need them to do is expand the small pieces of comb and continue to draw comb out on the top bars. The bees need to either be in the top bar hive or the NUC, but definitely not both. I’m hoping that they build up the top bars enough so that I can take away the NUC and give those frames to another hive. I anticipate the need to feed this hive a lot.

I took a short video today of the activity at the front of the hive. The bees are still a bit confused about the entrance being a foot higher up, which is why there are a lot of bees hovering at the bottom of the top bar hive. They circle until they remember that the entrance moved.

First Two Hives in the Apiary

The nucs I ordered from The Carolina Bee Company are now happily in their new home. There was a little bit of confusion with my order, but in the end it was handled very well and I would definitely do business with them in the future.

My bees are Minnesota Hygienic and very strong. One of the queens is marked (green) and the other one must be a ninja because she couldn’t be found to mark. Even with the foragers out collecting pollen, the medium frames were full There were clear signs that she was there and laying. Since Monica couldn’t get the queen marked, I was given six frames, instead of five. I modified two hive bodies with standard window screen stapled to the bottoms. This ensured good ventilation without giving any of the bees the opportunity of riding up front with me.

I spilled a little bit of sugar water on the concrete block.

Bees walking across the wax bridge to their new home

I transferred the hives from the traveling boxes in to their permanent homes. These bees are extremely friendly. I had my jacket, but didn’t even light the smoker. Without any fuss, they climbed their way in to the hive. I also repeatedly adjusted the entrance reducers without any protection. The ladies didn’t seem to mind.

I’m still in the process of building them better entrance reducers. I currently have scraps of wood left over from building the hive bodies. They are not all tall enough to block the entrance and the bees will nudge them just enough to make a new entrance.

The ladies of Hegemone are finding a lot of pollen. Hopefully it's from the blooming Tulip Poplar trees. Tulip Poplar honey is delicious.

The Anteia Ladies are working hard this Saturday morning.

The following day, both hives were already hard at work bringing in the pollen and nectar. The left hive seems to be a bit stronger and had a constant flow of traffic. The right hive was not as active, but still had a steady stream of foragers. We still have not picked names for the hives, but at least we’ve settled on a naming theme. All of our hives will be named after Greek gods/goddesses.

While typing this entry, I’ve made the executive decision that the left hive will be named “Hegemone” and the right hive will be named “Antheia”.

[b]Hegemone[/b] – A Goddess of Plants and she was in charge of making sure they bloomed and bore fruit as they were meant to. Her name means “mastery”.

[b]Antheia[/b] – The Goddess of Vegetation, Lowlands, Marshlands, Gardens, Blossoms, the Budding Earth, and Human Love.

There was a lot of activity at the entrance of Antheia with lots of bees flying around in front. The hive was also buzzing a lot louder than earlier in the day. It was the weaker of the two hives and I feared it was getting robbed. To be on the safe side, I suited up and lit the smoker. I gave a puff to the entrance and then proceeded to reduce it to the point where only 1-2 bees could pass through at a time. I took off the top for a few moments to have a look inside. Probably not the brightest move since I thought they were being robbed, but it turns out it might have been a good thing to do. A local beekeeper, Bob, later told me that taking the top off the hive will get the bees to return to the hive to help defend it.

A few minutes after the entrance was drastically reduced and the top was put back on, the hive settled down. I did notice something a bit odd though. It looked as if the queen was flying around outside the hive. I don’t know if she left when I opened the top or prior to that, but I watched her circle a few times and then go back in to the hive. She was about the size of the other queen (maybe a little bigger), except with a much darker abdomen.

The most likely explanation for all of the activity would be many of the worker bees switching roles to becoming foragers. That would make sense due to the hive losing many foragers that were left behind when I picked up the frames in the middle of the day. During the whole “robbing” experience, foragers were still bringing back pollen.

Some other tricks mentioned by Bob.

• Turn on a sprinkler so the robbing bees think it is raining and leave.
• Put a brick in front of the entrance so the bees have to climb over and down in to the hive entrance.

It’s very enjoyable to watch the hives. The new foragers orientating themselves and dancing to tell their sisters about all of the Tulip Poplar trees in the area. I purchased a tripod to make it easier for me to take many pictures of my ladies.

A lone bee on the tree gator

I am still not entirely sure if I will purchase mediums or build my own. There are many free plans for hives and my only limiting factors are lack of time and lack of power tools.