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| Mead in the Making |
On Saturday Aug 21 I opened the hive to see what was going on.
There were not many bees in the top super, and only a couple frames of capped honey.The rest of the frames were largely empty, but there were all drawn out and the extracted frames we put in were all cleaned up and nice looking again. In the top brood box there were a lot of bees and a lot of honey. The middle frames that didnt have complete foundation had a bunch of what looked like drone cells -i opened one up with a corner of the hive tool and saw a fat larva inside. There were quite a few, i just left them because those frames had bigger cells than the other ones and with nothing to replace them (except the one hated black plastic one) destroying them would be pointless. Besides, since the big flow is over and the honey harvested it shouldnt matter too much having a few extra drones (im hoping).
I didnt pull out all the frames, only the middle ones, but i tried to look on the bottoms of all of them for a queen cell or anything unusual but didnt see anything. In the bottom brood box there were a lot of bees, honey, orange capped cells (pollen? brood?) there were a lot of bees covering these frames so i didnt dig into any. Plus it was so hot i was more than ready to get outta that suit.
Otherwise, bee traffic has been good and we have seen them on many many flowers around including mint, geraniums, the green beans, squashes, clover etc. The neighbors report that their garden is being visited in great numbers. All in all, they seem like they are doing well.
I'm glad to hear they're doing well, perhaps if there's not many of them in the top super we should have taken it off... still can now and dump them into the lower box. Saw Hollis today and he says we should be started on their medication, said to look into things like menthol if we wanted to do something more natural. Guess we better research it, certain medications are dependent upon the ambient temperature and must be administered in order. And if there is any further honey or comb extraction for human consumption to be done then that should of course happen first.
ReplyDeleteI'm a bit concerned about all the drone cells, hope they're not getting ornery, or if there is just too many (enough honey for them, or do we feed?)
Also, it's very nice to hear you took a stab at the mead. I should try too. I will try to bring more jars (although I am dismayed to learn that there is Bisphenol A in the plastic in the lid liners in the jars I last brought!) But I think that the rest of the pail should be yours (and fam) to dispense with as you guys see fit. (but sell some if you want, and I can ask Chris' Honey Yard if they can sell some for you if you think) or else let's figure the best way to store that for over-wintering.
Anyway, talk to you guys soon... hope you're all doing well, enjoyed the best of summer!
-=pj=-
ps. we bought a 1993 dodge minivan, so i can get family and stuff around now better/more comfortably ... although no trunk for hives! ack.
ok, going to take off the top super, but otherwise not take off the top brood box
ReplyDeletedont know what about medicines, i thought youknew what to do about that-- i like he idea of using menthol or other more hippie natural preparations. ill look at beesource and ask around but do you know where to get this kinda stuff?
there's 5 gallons of mead so i expect you to drink some, dont dip into your honey stash for that cuz theres sure more that anyone here wants to keep. (unless someone at NW Fuel is reading this and wants a bottle. leave a comment if you do!)
the last of that bucket turned out to be 2 litres, and i used about 1 1/2L of it in the mead, so thata about that. hows your supply holding out?