Thursday, May 13, 2010

Today's Ladies Journal 3





Holy Cow, that's a lot of bees. Things are going well. The ladies have begun filling out the empty frames I moved around before. Two are half full of comb now. I think two days for two half combs is pretty good progress. Wish there was some way to be sure if moving the combs spurred this development, or if it was only due to population increase. Have to investigate more at a later date when opportunity arises.
As you can see the population has skyrocketed. I would have to say it has nearly doubled in the last week. Decided to put another hive body on top to give them more room. When I did this I moved two of the brood frames to the upper hive body to encourage the ladies to spread out into their new space. Not sure if it will speed the process at all but I thought it would at least let them know they are safe. The nurse bees are still on the brood frames, so the larva are safe. I also refilled the feed box with new syrup today. I would really like to clean it out but there are always so many bees in the entry chamber I'm not sure how to do it.
Saw four small hive beetles(SHB) at various places in the hive. Three were on the bottom board and one was in the feeder. They are bigger than I thought. If I can catch one I will take a picture to post. Anyway, I quashed the one in the feeder and two on the bottom board. The bees were really going after the one on the bottom board I couldn't get to, so all is probably well. As long as there population is strong they should be able to defend against such pests. I also saw some sort of larval worm in the feeder. I believe it was a SHB larva, but will do some research to be sure. It was quickly dispatched.

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