Inverness Location:
We are so pleased thus far with our hives this year. With the exception of one or two hives, all are humming along! We've been able to add additional supers to the top of each of them. The queens are producing well and honey is being stored up. The bees are really working hard.
We are very pleased with the progress of our hives in Inverness. We are finding a lot of happy, active bees and they are starting to put up stores of honey!
Our sponsors are always welcome to watch us work with the bees and our Inverness family takes us up on this as often as they can. This time, we found some comb that the bees were building "upside down." We removed it because we would prefer they build the comb from the top of the frame downwards. If they don't, the angle of the comb can be off and things just don't work as "right" as they should.
Location #2: More Sponsor Involvement!
We love when our sponsors come out and watch us work on the hives. We love when they have questions and when they become just as excited as we are about honey bees. In the case of our next visit this day, our Sponsors had continued to research more about honey bees and beekeeping and they were becoming more and more passionate about their bees. Just as we don't want our hives to die over winter, they don't either and so they continued to research additional things that could be done. They found some beekeeping equipment that they wanted to put into place in their location as an experiment to see if it would help the hives survived.
One of the things they found and want to put into place are these "Ultimate Hive Stands." They purchased a pair and requested that we place the hives onto these stands instead of our typical cinder-block stands. Mike helped our Sponsor to put assemble the stands and then we installed the hives on top of them.
One of the things they found and want to put into place are these "Ultimate Hive Stands." They purchased a pair and requested that we place the hives onto these stands instead of our typical cinder-block stands. Mike helped our Sponsor to put assemble the stands and then we installed the hives on top of them.
As we continue to work with these hives, we'll keep you updated as to whether these Ultimate Hive Stands made any difference in hive health, honey production, or winter survival. We certainly are excited by the opportunity to experiment this way and we're glad that our sponsors have become more passionate about honey bees!
One of the hives at this location, despite it being a new package of bees, had a queen that disappeared. We've tried adding brood from the other comb to allow the bees to raise their own queen, but so far, there hasn't been much luck. As you can see from the pictures above, signs aren't good. We've put in an order for a new queen for this hive. We expect her to arrive via the mail or UPS soon.
We love when our sponsors get involved with us and when they ask us questions! Sponsors can be as involved as they want, we don't mind!
We love when our sponsors get involved with us and when they ask us questions! Sponsors can be as involved as they want, we don't mind!