News from the hive

Before opening the hive for inspection.

 Went up to check on the girls today. They have filled the third deep hive body and both supers. I added another super and need to start working on plans for harvest and doing a check for mites.

The two honey supers(far) and two of the deep hive bodies(near) removed.

The boxes are now extremely heavy. The full honey supers are about 50 pounds each and the full deep hive bodies are at about 75 pounds each. I had to use my whole body to lift them. Sometimes it took a couple tries. Also the girls really love to glue everything together with super glue.  I have come to understand the real need for the hive tool.

Entrance with my sticky board.

I made a sticky board last night (you can see the blue in the picture above) to check for varroa mites but I did not like how much it covered the entrance so I am going to do a sugar roll test next week instead. If I can get some pictures of that I will certainly share. It will be cute.

Have you heard of the varroa mites? They are a huge problem with our honey bees. They are a parasite that weakens the bees. The equivalent on you or me would be a wood tick the size of your head feeding off of you. Here is some more indepth information on the mites life cycle on the bee.

I think they were ready for me to go...

The girls were definitely ready for me to be on my way today. So many of them now it is really amazing. The hive now has three full deep hive bodies and three supers (I added one today). Two of the honey supers are full. Each full honey super will give you about 35 pounds of honey. Wow!

Have a great week everyone!
Blessings!

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