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My Archives: April 2006

Sunday, April 30, 2006

I am of the belief that architects and engineers are the only professions where one can go to college and come out dumber than they went in.

They are the bane of my existance. I can count on one hand the number of architects and engineers on one hand I respect.

I see you are sceptical, you doubt me. That is understandable. Until you look here.

No it is not photoshopped, yes it real. And yes this is the kind of stuff I have to put up with from architects and engineers.

I don't charge enough.

Posted by understudy @ 09:19 PM EST [Link]

Monday, April 17, 2006

Well two weeks in Chicago and my bees went to town. I come to a nuc box so full that bees are literally coming out of the entrance at night. The superhive is doing almost the same. The nuc has swarm cells forming on the bottom. The superhive does not. Fortunatly I have a couple of avaliable solutions. I have a deep box I can move the frames from the nuc into. Also I received a delivery of permacomb frames I can add to the super hive.

So a little information here. The nuc box has five deep frames all but one of the frames has comb on it and they are building on that frame. The bee population has tripled in the time I was gone, but with no swarm queen they have not left. So basically I have to take a deep box and place five foundation frames in the box and then add the frames from the nuc. Well not quite. I add the frames and space them so that there is a gap in the center where the frames that come from the nuc will go and then place an empty frame inbetween the frames the that came from the nuc. As the bees build comb I will swap out the fresh frames with empty frames. Then I will have to build up once all the frames are filled up. Basically I have to give the bees enough space in order to keep them around. When I moved the bees I scraped the swarm cells off the bottom of the frames. I probably didn't need to since I was adding frames but it made me feel better.

The super hive is a slightly different story. Since I have become so disgusted with the small hive beetles . I ordered permacomb to help combat it. The thing with permacomb is it only comes in medium. So I had to take my other spare deep frame and cut it down to a medium. Then for the real fun. Permacomb is plastic bee comb. it means the bees don't have to make wax comb. The permacomb already has cells. The problem is bees don't like plastic. So I have to mix a 5 gallon mix of sugarwater, heat up to a boil, stir it, and mix in a good amount of Honey B Healty. A natural product to entice bees and diet supplement. Once I have this mix in a very large pot, I have to take the permacomb and a bristle brush and place the permacomb in the boiling sugar wagter mix and scrub it with the brush. This forces the mix into all the cells. I then placed it in the medium box and let it cool down. Basically what you end up with, is a bunch of cells filled with bee food. The permacomb soaking in the solution takes away the plastic smell and the bees acccept the permacomb. I am going to add this medium on top of the brood deep that is already there. If all goes well in about a week they should start accepting it. It will take a little longer but they should be able to build some burr comb and cause the queen to move onto those frames and continue laying her eggs there.

You can see pics of the bees overcrowded in the nuc here
Here
and here

You can see pics of me moving the bees to bigger box and adding the medium to the super hive here.
Work Work Work

Well that was the idea on 04/09/06.
I took a quick look in the hives today. The first hive now a deep is coming along nicely. Wax comb is being laid at a quick rate. I shall be moving a frame about every two weeks.
The superhive is interesting. They haven't built any burr comb to reach the permacomb, yet. However they have accepted it and started filling it with honey and beebread. It is doing very nicely.

I have also noticed that I am receiving a guest. It is small and managable right now. However it could become a problem later.
opossum

Posted by understudy @ 12:20 AM EST [Link]

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