Hive Inspection - 5/22/2015

[Brad H.]

Hive inspection time. Time to check the health of the hives. All signs point to two good hives.

Found some capped brood. Queen is doing a nice job of laying.



Even found some bees just getting ready to emerge.



Here's some drone cells, with a drone just getting ready to emerge.



Found her highness (the queen).



And marked her with a white dot.



Looks like the girls have been busy. Thought this frame of capped honey was cool with a line running right through the middle of it that was unfilled.



Also took the opportunity to install a solar powered electric fence. Cheap insurance. My brother had a bear try to break into his hives last weekend, so we thought it best to get one installed. Bear sightings are rare around here, but I've heard they can smell hives from crazy distances.  Better safe than sorry!

[rendezvous]

Very cool! 

[nytrapper23]

That's awesome brad, thanks for sharing

[hoseromon]

Nice. I can't wait to start a hive next spring

[bk]

Thanks for sharing the pictures, Brad.  Those hives are looking good.  Interesting line of empty cells on the honey frame.  Wonder why the bees passed those cells over - they alway know something we don't.  

The bear fence is good insurance.  I've read that black bears can smell hives up to two miles -glad I don't have a nose like that.

[bk]

I can't help my self with this comment...

Brad, I think you have apple honey on the left and wild flower on the right of the demark line.   Now how to extract and keep them separate.

[Brad H.]

I do run a tight ship here. Glad they are listening to me.

[farmertrappe]

Cool and informative.

[tkfurs]

This bee stuff does look like a fun hobby and is very interesting. I don't think i would have the time to do it the way it needs to be done, and I'm not all that crazy about honey. But i do really enjoy these informative threads. Maybe i can live the hobby vicariously through all you guys and get a bit of honey from CJ after his hives are up and going. The rest of the family loves honey..