Today I decided upon viewing another beard on Tower Place that circumstances had to change. Tower Place had to move into a higher quality condo. I began preparation for the move to Colony Square,
Colony Square is of course larger and (more importantly, cooler) than tiny Tower Place. (A small Atlanta joke). Tower Place has a solid bottom board and offers little opportunity for ventilation. So the move happened this morning.
First I prepared the hive. I took each box off and draped it to keep the bees peaceful. I opened the bottom box and moved the five frames to the deep I had prepared for them at Colony Square. There was good brood in the nuc - and I saw eggs and tiny c-shaped larvae.
In the top two boxes there was lots of honey and in box #2 of the three there were eggs and brood.
Since the 10 frames in the top two nuc boxes were pretty much used, I checkerboarded the honey frames with empty frames and set the hive up with two medium boxes atop the deep. It's more space than they currently need but we are in a nectar flow and I want them to keep working.
The goal of this move is to provide the hive with more ventilation. You can see in the slides the screened bottom board topped with a slatted rack. This gives the hive lots of room for air circulation and cuts down on the need to send bees outside to beard.
I'm having my sons-in-law save beer bottle caps for me to use to help this year with hive ventilation as well. My friend/mentor in Virginia, Penny, has suggested using a bottle cap at each corner of the inner cover to lift the telescoping cover up just a little, providing more ventilation and avoiding the HUGE opening provided by proppng a stick in the back of the hive between the inner cover and the telescoping cover.
You can see the steps of the move in the slide show below. Also I opened the other hive, Lenox Pointe, and found beautiful eggs in that hive. It was doing well and I simply looked around a bit and then closed it up and went away.
I know, I know, I have a 10 frame top on an 8 frame hive. I have a new 8 frame top but it isn't painted yet, so I'll trade out the top over the weekend. Also I left the nuc box sitting in front of the hive box to allow the slower bees to catch on to the fact that the queen had up and moved to Colony Square.
Colony Square is of course larger and (more importantly, cooler) than tiny Tower Place. (A small Atlanta joke). Tower Place has a solid bottom board and offers little opportunity for ventilation. So the move happened this morning.
First I prepared the hive. I took each box off and draped it to keep the bees peaceful. I opened the bottom box and moved the five frames to the deep I had prepared for them at Colony Square. There was good brood in the nuc - and I saw eggs and tiny c-shaped larvae.
In the top two boxes there was lots of honey and in box #2 of the three there were eggs and brood.
Since the 10 frames in the top two nuc boxes were pretty much used, I checkerboarded the honey frames with empty frames and set the hive up with two medium boxes atop the deep. It's more space than they currently need but we are in a nectar flow and I want them to keep working.
The goal of this move is to provide the hive with more ventilation. You can see in the slides the screened bottom board topped with a slatted rack. This gives the hive lots of room for air circulation and cuts down on the need to send bees outside to beard.
I'm having my sons-in-law save beer bottle caps for me to use to help this year with hive ventilation as well. My friend/mentor in Virginia, Penny, has suggested using a bottle cap at each corner of the inner cover to lift the telescoping cover up just a little, providing more ventilation and avoiding the HUGE opening provided by proppng a stick in the back of the hive between the inner cover and the telescoping cover.
You can see the steps of the move in the slide show below. Also I opened the other hive, Lenox Pointe, and found beautiful eggs in that hive. It was doing well and I simply looked around a bit and then closed it up and went away.
I know, I know, I have a 10 frame top on an 8 frame hive. I have a new 8 frame top but it isn't painted yet, so I'll trade out the top over the weekend. Also I left the nuc box sitting in front of the hive box to allow the slower bees to catch on to the fact that the queen had up and moved to Colony Square.
No comments:
Post a Comment