Here is a nifty read from Scientific American about the antibiotic properties of honey.

Manuka Honey

Day 5 Notes

Tomorrow will be 48 hours after freeing the queen in Hive A. I am planning to check the interior of both hives and am hoping to see a lot of drawn out comb, possibly even some eggs in Hive B as the queen has been free there longer. As the photos below show I made the new feeder for Hive B today, nothing fancy, but very functional. I am interested to see how fast the bees lap the syrup up and how quickly it needs to be re-filled. I can think of one drawback to this set up; the top is not very heavy and could easily blow off in a strong wind. It could be fastened to the hive body with buckles in the future but for now I will place some bricks on the top to keep it weighted down. Since the feeder tops don't need to be in place year round, only in times of dearth, I don't see the need to make a permanent solution to this challenge.

Here is a shot of the ladies exiting the opening to the old feeder. I wonder if they go up there and get a little lost. All these bees in the feeder aren't making comb or foraging like they should be. But, then again, maybe this water cooler behavior is common to all species.

Here is the new top and feeder I devised for Hive B. Though the quart jar is smaller than the reservoir in the old top feeder it can be easily monitored and is much easier to handle than a syrup filled box.

Music Re-fresher

Here is a link to the download of Bee Sides, 13 bee related songs ranging from artists such as Aurthur Askey to Erykah Badu:

http://rapidshare.com/files/457405002/Bee_Sides_mp3.rar

Use the free account/slow download on the right hand side of the page. It's in a compressed .rar format so you will need to decompress before listening.

Enjoy.

Day 4

Checked the hives today and this is what I found:
Hive A:
They are eating the syrup pretty well and drawing out a little comb, but the queen has not been freed from her cage. I removed the cork from the end of the cage and put it back in the hive allowing the queen free access to the hive. There was a hive beetle in the queen cage. Not a good sign. I believe the beetles may have come with the packages. The girls seem to exhibit good departure and arrival patterns and seem to be in good order.
Hive B:
These girls too, seem to have settled in. More comb is drawn out than in Hive A and it seems to be drawn out in a regular pattern from the center of the hive outward. Good indication that the queen survived my ham-fisted installation and the hive is working properly. This hive has last years top feeder and the bees keep getting into it somehow. I think I will devise a new top and feeder pattern for it tomorrow following my friend Ben's 1" plywood, hole-saw and mason jar technique.
I will leave the ladies alone for a couple of days to recover from my intrusions and check for comb and eggs on Friday. If all goes well I will have good news to report.

On another note if you haven't checked out the web cam of the Decorah, Iowa Bald Eagles I recommend you do so. Here is a link:
http://www.raptorresource.org/falcon_cams/decorah_eagle_xcel.html

Photo essay: Installation Hive A

This appears backwards in time.












Here is a small photo essay concerning the installation of Hive A. It should now be all in order.