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.
-
-
Shiny new covers for both hives
-
-
Antheia with the candy block in place
-
-
Hegemone with lots of bees eating the dry sugar
-
-
Antheia with the candy block above the inner cover
Bee Hive antheia, feeding, hegemone, sting
It’s been a about a week since I found the dead queen on the landing board of Antheia. After the inspection of the hive, I think that the old queen may have been superceded. Just like what we saw in Hegemone a short while ago, there was lots of capped brood, but no signs of a laying queen. We took off the masks to check for eggs this time. There were a few more queen cells with the sides ripped out and it looked like a few that emerged. Hopefully the hive has a virgin queen off on mating flights.
The girls were not too happy with my rearranging of the hive, I pulled a few frames up to the second brood box. One of the girls climbed on to my left middle finger and gave me the kiss of fire. I pulled the stinger out after about 5 seconds, but she definitely got a little bit of venom in to me. My hand didn’t swell at all and I was left with only a small red mark. The red mark was gone in less than an hour. This confirms that I am not allergic to bee stings. With many years of this apitherapy ahead of me, I should be less likely to suffer from arthritis as I age.
I took off the cover of Hegemone and there were a lot of bees in the upper box. The frames contained lots of capped and uncapped brood, meaning the queen is using both boxes for brood. There were clear signs of a laying queen, so we didn’t progress in to the lower box. There was no point moving down further and potentially injuring or disturbing the queen. I put frames that were still being drawn out between the frames with brood. This should encourage the queen to expand the brood nest in to these frames and increase the number of bees in the hive.
Beekeeping Tip: Finding signs of a laying queen is just as good as finding the queen.
Inspection antheia, hegemone, sting
