A good day

Another great weather day today, two 60 degree days in a row, almost unheard of around here especially for February. The girls were out in force.

When I opened it up it was just frameafter frame of bees, they also had a nice but small brood nest

After this I ran out to the maltby hives and checked them out a little more than I did the first day. Of the three hives two are looking good with nice brood nests, the other not so good and no sign of an active queen, I am expecting that hive to die out in the next few weeks. All the hives were bringing in a bright yellow pollen. which my book says is from the Maple

Maltby Update

With the afternoon temps hitting 60 degrees I made it out to the maltby yard to see how they faired. I was not sure what to expect but I got a nice supprise when I found all hives were active and the bees were flying.
I quickly put a gallon of syrup on each hive along with half a pollen patty and left them to be.

A note about the new Dadant winter pollen patties.
The bees seem to like them but I have to say I was a little disappointed with the way Dadant packaged them. I purchased a complete box and each box is divided into four with the patties stacked in each section. Trouble is the patties were not firm enough when they were boxed and they have tended to all melt together. Not a huge deal but it is a pain.
I spoke with somebody else who also got some and they had the same problem. Dadant is not a small outfit and I hope they are already making changes to get rid of this problem.

Mixing sugar water for spring feeding

Many folks take way to much time measuring out sugar, boiling water etc. A few years ago I was making it up in a 20 gallon plastic garbage can with a piece of wood. It was taking too long and I soon switched to HFCS because it needed no mixing, trouble is I have to take a vacation day and drive down to Seattle to get it. Time is money and I really don’t have much of either to splash around so here is what I did this year.

Take a 5 gallon bucket, fill it halfway with sugar, put it in the bathtub and fill the bucket with hot water. As the water is running mix it up with a paint mixer and electric drill (12 volt battery) The whole process is 3 – 4 minutes and the syrup is ready the next day once it has cooled down. Also the paint mixer I got was heavy duty and still only $9.

Death toll, so far

It was nice out when I got off work so I headed out to the farm, of the eight hives I had two have died. Definatley looked like they starved.
At home I had four hives and a nuc, the nuc and three hives were dead, again starvation.
That puts me at 30% so far with a couple of months to go. I will start feeding this weekend.
I will do a full autopsy with pictures later in the month.