Outside of hives just before honey harvest

Just had a chance to take some pictures of the outside of these hives.  I was pulling honey this weekend but the camera I use to photograph the inside of hives wasn't working.  I did extract 72 pounds of honey with the tallest North hive (on the right) providing most of it.

The South hive entrance is busy with lots of bees in the air.

The middle hive entrance is also quite busy.

The North hive also has lots of bees coming and going.  This has been my largest hive all year.

The nucleus hive that I have tried to start just recently was active with bees coming and going.  I put the grass in the entrance as a way of helping the bees orient themselves to a new hive.

Another hive inspection

Another inspection of the north two hives to see how they are doing.  The bees had built comb between the top two boxes and filled it with honey, so when I pull the boxes off and scrape off the comb it leaves some honey pooled on top of the frames.  Here you can see the bees eagerly lining up shoulder to shoulder (do bees have shoulders?) to lap up the exposed honey.

Lots of capped brood in the north hive.

This frame has some pollen around the outside edges (the orange color) and some brood in the middle.  You can see my new hives stand in the back waiting for future expansion.

Here is a frame with pollen on the bottom (actually that's the top of the frame as I am holding it upside down) and there are some queen cells along the top -- the peanut shaped cells.  This means that the hive is preparing to swarm and replace their queen.  This is an "old" queen entering her third year so I am not too upset about replacing her.

Here is a frame full of orange pollen from the bottom box of the north hive.

Here is a nice frame of capped brood from the middle box.  All of the hives seem to be doing well, though I only got into two of them today.

I have added honey supers to each hive.  Each hive has three boxes on the bottom for brood, and then boxes above that are for honey, called honey "supers" by beekeepers.  The two far hives have one honey super and the near hive actually has three supers on it at this point.  Obviously the near hive (my North hive) is the strongest most active one, but its also the hive that is preparing to swarm.

Summer tanager

I saw a red bird fly across the back yard and land in one of my pecan trees that didn't quite fly like or look like a cardinal.  So, I got my binoculars and saw that it definitely wasn't a cardinal.  After some research in my bird books I find that it's a summer tanager.  This seems to be at the far northern edge of its range.

It is a pretty bird.  Actually more red than a cardinal because it is all red without the black markings on the face that the cardinal has.  Also doesn't have the crest.  I have seen it several times since and watched it singing.  Its song is actually rather familiar, so I presume its been around in past years but I didn't recognize it for what it was.

The female is a yellow color -- I saw a female singing in the top of one of my apple trees in the orchard.  The only down side of these birds is that their favorite food is bees and wasps.  Luckily, my bee yard is a quarter mile from my back yard where I am seeing those and I hope they haven't found the hives to make a feast.

Something's chipping up a dead tree

While walking in my woods I noticed this tree.  It is a fairly large tree and is dead, but something appears to be chipping away at it in a major way.  You can see that the trunk has been chipped away quite a bit and there is a pile of chips on the ground.

Here's a view of the tree from the side to the right of the first picture.  The chipping is somewhat uneven with some deep furrows.

Here is a closer picture of the bottom front of the tree, where you can see the degree of damage and the chips on the ground.

Here is the bottom from the side.  You can see some of the furrows.  It almost looks like claw marks on the bottom portion.

Here's the middle section from the front.

And the middle section from the side.  Here you can really see the deep furrows.

Here is the top portion from the front.

Here is the top section from the side.  The only thing that I can think that would do this would be woodpeckers, and particularly the large pileated woodpeckers.  Still, even with the big woodpeckers, it seems like an awful lot of destruction.  I don't visit this part of the woods often so I don't know how long this has been going on.

Finish inspection of third hive

I finished my first hive inspection by getting into the third (South) hive a few days after inspecting the other two.  Looking into the candy box on this hive, the sugar is almost all consumed, and, oddly, there is no comb drawn in this box like in the other two hives.

Like the other two hives, this hive has a lot of brood in it showing it is a strong hive with an active queen.

Another frame of capped brood and a little capped honey in the top left corner.

Another frame of brood from a little deeper in the hive.  Note that the cappings on this frame are a little darker than on the first two frames, because this frame has been in the hive longer.

Another frame of brood from even deeper in the hive is even darker.  This hive is building up well.

This frame has both capped and uncapped brood.  You can see some larvae faintly int he cells above and among the cappings.

This frame has pollen (the colorful cells particularly in the bottom left side) and nectar (the wet looking cells on the bottom right).  The bees are already bringing in their own food.

First full hive inspection 2015

Finally got a day when it was warm enough and I was free to do a full hive inspection to see how the bees came through the winter.  The small "nuc" hive (the green one) didn't make it and I did not expect it to, as it was a very small cluster established very late in the season in September.

This is the bottom board of the North hive that shows quite a bit of bee activity with bees flying.

The top entrance of the middle hive shows some activity but is probably the least active of the three large hives.  The bees use the top entrance on the two southern hives primarily but the bees in the North hive seem to never use the top entrance.  I'm not sure why this is.

The top entrance of the South hive is more active, perhaps because its on the south end of the row so gets more sun and warms up faster.  This has been a pretty active hive on warm days during the winter though.

Each hive has two smaller boxes on top.  The top one is a "quilt box" that is just a box with cedar bedding in it.  This serves to insulate the hive to some extent and also helps to absorb moisture.  The next box was a "candy box" which was filled with a 16 pound block of sugar in November and left there for additional food supply during the winter.  This shows me lifting up the quilt box to look into the candy box.  The sugars seems to all be gone and the bees are building comb int he empty space.  It is good to see that the bees are active and in comb building mode.  I think that this shows that the hive is strong.

Here is a clearer picture of hte comb being built in the empty candy box.

Here is a frame of capped honey from the North hive.  The bees have consumed all of the sugar I added but they still have a lot of available food supply to make it through the balance of the Spring.  Nectar flow will be starting soon.

This frame from the North hive shows lots of brood, showing that the queen is actively laying and building up for Spring.  This is another sign of a strong hive and good queen.  This is the beginning of this queen's third year so she is near the end of her useful lifespan.

Another frame from the North hive showing lots of capped brood.

This frame shows more brood in the North hive and shows brood that is both capped and uncapped.  The uncapped brood shows that the queen has been laying within the last week so I know that she is most likely present, though at this time of year she wouldn't have been likely to leave in a swarm.

This frame from farther down in the North hive is full of pollen, a protein source for the bees essential for their Spring buildup.  This confirms what I have seen at the entrance with bees bringing in pollen on their legs.  Most of the pollen is a tan color that is most likely from maple trees -- one of the first pollen sources in this area.

A peek at the middle hive candy box shows that there is a lot more of the sugar block still present though most of it is eaten.  They eat this first from underneath so much of the white sugar area is eaten out below.  These bees have also built some comb on the bottom of the quilt box above the empty space in the candy box.

Here is a frame from the middle hive showing lots of capped brood.  This hive appears also to be strong, though not as strong as the North hive.

Another frame of brood from the middle hive showing a pretty solid brood pattern.

The inspection of these first two hives was about all that I was up to that day.  I took off the tar paper wrapped around each hive for insulation and warming, and took off the quilt boxes and candy boxes.  I left the candy box in front of the middle hive because it was full of bees that I could not shake out and I wanted to give them a chance to make their way back into the hive.  I have also taken off the metal barriers on the bottom entrance of each hive that was there as a mouse guard.  Mice won't be entering hives this time of year.  Removing the candy box takes away the top entrance, which confused the bees in the middle hive for a while.

Turkeys ready for Spring

Early this morning I notice that there were a dozen turkeys walking around in our front yard.  I took the chance to take some pictures out of our front door.

One old tom kept puffing himself up in the driveway.

He is really quite a pretty old tom, but he seems to be missing a few tail feathers.

A group of tops showing off near the garden fence.

I did get into the garden to clean off some of the last year's trash from the asparagus bed and took the straw off of the strawberry bed.  Here there were some leaf buds from one of the rhubarb plants poking out of the soil.

This is the other rhubarb plant coming up with green leaves showing.

I did also take the chance to check my hives.  With temperatures in the mid 50s there was lots of activity around all three hives.  It's probably getting close to when I can take off the winter wrapping and mouse guards and take down the windbreak.  This is the north hive that just uses its bottom entrance for some reason.

Here's the middle hive with bees flying and going in and out of the top entrance.

The north hive has bees using both entrances but they seem to prefer the top entrance.  The brood is probably in the top box at this time of year and the top entrance is closer to the action.

The crocuses have been blooming this week.  These are the large crocuses I have planted hear the old dog kennel.

Daffodils are nearly ready to  bloom under the protection of bushes in front of the house.