Sunday, May 24, 2015

Josephium inspection

I tried to inspect the Josephium today. I saw right away that both bodies were completely drawn out and brimming with honey. On the easternmost frame of the upper body I saw a large slash across the uncapped honeycomb. Was this sliming due to the small hive beetle, or was this damage incurred during the pulling of the frame? On the next to easternmost frame in the upper body there was plenty of capped drone brood, surrounded by capped and uncapped honey.

Unfortunately, this is as far as I got. The smoker, which had been going great, went out suddenly. At the same time, both of my gloves ripped. The bees got quite agitated; their buzzing went into gear, and the sentry bees started buzzing me and showing a great deal of interest in my now exposed right index finger.

So I closed up. Since there was so much honey, I removed the feeder pail and put on a honey super. A few hours later, I went out and put a mix of empty frames and frames with foundation into the super. In those hours, the Jospehianae had really moved in. I hope I didn't squash too many inserting the frames.

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