VIDEOS
June 23, 2013
Thanks to Dennis, I got my first bee nuc!
Since that I`m going to make my own experience as a Nova Scotian Beekeeper.
I will try to share my practical experience with my apiary and will keep record of interesting events.
July 01, 2013
Today I reversed both supers and had a brief first look into the hive. The frames of the lower shallow super appears nearly full with brood, on two frames in the middle of the upper deep super the bees begun with storing honey - so far an unexperienced beekeeper can see ;-). I also did a jar-glas feeder on top of the inner cover. I didn`t had much success with my hive-top feeder, so I decided to change the feeders.
July 14, 2013 - first inspection
LOWER SHALLOW SUPER: frame 1 empty, 2 beginning with building combs, 3 honey, 4, 5, 6, 7 with capped brood, 8 honey and brood, 9 beginning with building combs.
UPPER DEEP SUPER: frame 1, 2, 3 empty, 4 beginning with building combs, 5 brood with uncovered bee larvae, 6 brood, 7, 8, 9, 10 empty.
I also stopped with feeding, because they didn`t seem to be very thirsty.
August 6, 2013 - second inspection
LOWER SHALLOW SUPER: 1 empty, 2 partly honey, 3 honey and brood, 4, 5, 6, 7 with capped brood (full), 8, 9 honey and brood (half full).
UPPER DEEP SUPER: 1, 2 empty, 3 honey, 4 honey, 5 brood with uncovered bee larvae and Honey, 6 brood, larvae and honey, 7 brood and honey, 8 honey, 9 beginning with building combs, 10 empty.
I found also in the lower super 2 queen cups (located at the upper part of frame 7). Both queen cups were empty. I cutted them out, I don`t think they are swarm cells. They are often called "play cups" because they are building them "just in case" they need to perform an emergency supersedure. In the future I will ignore the occasional queen cups, let them stay and watch them regularly if they are laying eggs into them. I don`t like the idea of swarming, so I put another SHALLOW SUPER with 10 frames on top. Hopefully they will like it!
On July 27th, I removed the entrance reducer, the population was growing fast, so I think they can better defend themself against predators.
August 20, 2013 - third inspection
Today I went with my beefriend Gerard from Port Hood to my hives. I was glad to get a professional beekeeper for a glance at my bees. They were very productive the last days and it was very crowded also on the top-super, which I even installed 2 weeks ago. They already build again two new queen-cups on the lower supper. Gerard told me that this probably are supersedure cells and they perhaps decide to get a new queen. We will let them doing this if they feel it is necessary. But the current queen is very productive and healthy so we don`t think that they will replace her.
We also had to scratch a lot of combs with good developed larvae from the top side of the frames and disposed them in front of the hive. It would be hard to separate the supers if they build the combs of two hives together. So the hive looks quite healthy and I hope they will get good over the winter.
