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I've been keeping this blog for all of my beekeeping years and I am beginning my 19th year of beekeeping in April 2024. Now there are more than 1300 posts on this blog. Please use the search bar below to search the blog for other posts on a subject in which you are interested. You can also click on the "label" at the end of a post and all posts with that label will show up. At the very bottom of this page is a list of all the labels I've used.

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I began this blog to chronicle my beekeeping experiences. I have read lots of beekeeping books, but nothing takes the place of either hands-on experience with an experienced beekeeper or good pictures of the process. I want people to have a clearer picture of what to expect in their beekeeping so I post pictures and write about my beekeeping saga here.Master Beekeeper Enjoy with me as I learn and grow as a beekeeper.

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Sunday, April 04, 2010

News of the L Hive

I've decided to name this hive the L Hive since L is the first initial of the woman's name from whom Julia and I got these bees. Over the weekend I opened the L hive to see what's what. In the bottom deep, I found frames that were coming apart and rotting on the ends. But all the frames in the deep bottom were filled with brood.

This is a vigorous and hard-working queen.



The brood extended almost to the edges on each frame. They didn't have much honey storage on the brood frames. Maybe since they have lived in a deep and a shallow for four years, they have learned to maximize the frame for brood production.




I decided that these girls needed a new area to build in and to lay brood in so I added an empty box this weekend. I filled it with mostly empty frames with a tiny ridge of comb on the top. There were a couple of frames with old comb on them to help guide the bees.

The L hive needs some attention. The bottom box has rotten corners, the box has no slatted rack and the bottom board needs replacing, I'm going to get boxes ready and move these bees into an 8 frame deep and two medium deeps on Thursday if all goes well. I will again adapt a 10 frame bottom board for an 8 frame hive and transfer these beautiful brood frames to a new box. The frames that are broken, I may try to glue, but I may leave until they actually fall apart and then replace them.

See the beard? We've had a hot weekend and the bees look like summer bearding. I will also put a slatted rack on this hive on Thursday to help with ventilation.


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