Spring hive inspection: Josephium

I got the smoker going well, and I got our my manipulation cloth: my first time to use it. The carnicae were much more gentle than the girls in the Ambrosium, although the smoke and cloth may have played a roll too. They had hardly touched their feed.

Brood were up in the top body. I removed a frame of drone brood and reduced the number of frames from 10 to 9 there. I pulled out an empty frame (just a bit of honey) from the other body. Then I swapped the bodies. I put the two removed frames into the attic with the feeder pail.

Lots of lavae, the hive looks healthy.

Spring hive inspection: Ambrosium

I went out to inspect the Ambrosium. The brood was split between the top and bottom bodies, so I did not swap the bodies. I was going to thin them out from 10 to 9 frames, but the bees were getting antsy, and my smoker went out.

They had drunk all their feed. I'll put another 4 pounds of sugar on tonight.

Warm spell

I put the feed buckets back on today. Low is in the high thirties the rest of the week, according to the forecast.

Another cold spell

It's a blustery stormy day today. There were white caps on the Allegheny River. The hawthorns and magnolias are in bloom.

The weather is going down to 27 degrees tonight, so I flipped the feeder pails over to keep them from dripping on the bees.

Warm spell and feed

I put 4 pounds of sugar each, 8 pounds total, on the Ambrosium and Josephium. It looks like we have a warm spell coming up.

Cold Spell

We have a cold spell coming up according to Google weather and Channel 11, so I took the feeder pails off. The Josephium has slurped up all its syrup; the Ambrosium has slurped up almost nothing.

Warm winter and an opportunity to feed.

Last month we had a really warm couple of days, so I split a four pound bag of sugar between the Ambrosium and Josephium. They both seemed happy and healthy and bringing in pollen, maple, I guess.

Today it's really warm again, and it looks like we will have a really warm week. The two surviving hives look happy and healthy with plenty of pollen going in, so I added a bag of sugar in syrup pails to each.