New ant proof hive stand

When I installed the screened bottom board, I also moved the hive onto a new ant-proof stand.  I hadn't gotten a picture of it until now, so here it is.

It is based off of a design here, or at least the idea of using high-temp grease in upside down cups instead of vaseline is.  I don't trust pounding a single pole in straight, and my wife doesn't want anything pounded in at all, for fear of hitting a sprinkler line, so even two per end wouldn't work.  So I welded a full frame up.  I originally tried it with an oxy/acetylene welder, because I was out of gas for my mig, but the welds just wouldn't hold.  They looked fine, but broke when I pounded on them.  I  finally remembered that I had some flux core wire laying around and used that.  1.5 hours per joint per attempt, several attempts over 3 days with the oxy welding, vs 15 minutes tops per joint with the flux-core.  So even if the oxy welds held, I wouldn't use that for something I really needed done soon unless I absolutely had to.

Bee update

Last night, I gave the bees the reserve syrup I had made.  Today was nice and warm all day and when I got home, the jar was completely empty.  I'm going to make up a couple of batches tonight, but my wife isn't going to be willing to refill the one feeder jar we have, so it will still have to wait until I get back unless I start putting it in a different container.  I'm not going to make a 5-gallon bucket worth, but I do have a spare pot the dogs have been drinking out of that I might could use.  I'll have to see.  The main problem will be making a floater for it to keep them from drowning.  I made one out of a scrap piece of plywood I had laying around for a water pail I set beside the hive.  Sticks and such weren't working, and we'd see 1 or 2 drowned bees a day.  None since I put in the floater.  I just used the bandsaw to cut it round almost the same size as the pail, and then drilled holes all over it.

Anyway, I reflilled the jar today with another 350 grams of sugar and water.  Interestingly, I measured what I poured into the jar after it cooled, and it was something like 682 grams.  It seems like a lot to me that nearly 20 grams of water would have evaporated, even considering that some of the syrup was still clinging to the inside of the pot after I poured it.  But, maybe not.  Regardless, it probably means I need to keep track of just sugar weight instead of syrup weight in the log.  The purpose is to determine 1) how much I need to make over a given amount of time, and 2) how much it costs me.  The difference in sugar is greater than that for water, so I'm better off ignoring the water that evaporates than using an incorrect total weight.  Of course, at least with the total weight, I would end up overshooting instead of undershooting, but I'll worry about that later if I have to.

I've also decided to keep a single blog post as a constantly updating bee log.  That post is here: Beehive Log.

Checked on the Queen today

I checked on the bees today, and the queen is out and I found her, and they are making nice comb (to me anyway).  I didn't look around a lot, as it is still chilly and windy, and I didn't want to leave them open longer than I had to.  I took out the can and took off the extra deep (or medium, I don't know which)  and put it back together.

I made another 3 cups or so of syrup today.  386 grams each of sugar and water, to be exact (might as well be).  Oh, and yesterday was 352 grams each, I believe.  The bees needed feeding, but I ended up not using any of it.  The can still had 550 grams total of syrup in it.  I poured it in the jar instead, and I'll save the syrup I made today.  I'm going to have to start making this in bigger batches, and get a bigger feeding method.  If we had installed this package at our other property like my wife wanted, they may not have lived, because I'll only be able to check on them once a week (or maybe, they would have lived, but not done as well).  I've read some places that say you should feed all of the first season after installing them.  I was going to ask about that at a bee club meeting we were going to go to tonight, but we had other things to do.

I'm wondering if the concentration of the syrup is why there was so much left in the can.  Of course, the can also only has 3 holes, so maybe it was just too hard to get out (especially since all 3 holes may have been covered the way I put the can in, which is why I put the boardman on in the first place).  So we'll see how fast the level drops tomorrow.

Beehive update

I've decided to use this as a bee log for now.  We've just gotten our first hive set up, and if we're going to do any of it for profit, I need to make sure I keep track of as much of it as I can, so I'll do that here.  It will allow me to keep track of which hives do the best and what factors may affect that.  It will also allow me to keep track of when a queens productivity may be dropping so that I can swap her out.

We ordered packaged bees from www.rweaver.com.  3 pounds of italian bees and a clipped and marked queen were delivered on April 3rd.  The installation went as planned, with no stings (with no safety equipment on, to boot).  I have a 10-frame deep on bottom and an empty deep on top to cover the original can of syrup.  I had the original shipping box in there as well, but decided it may be too tempting for the bees to build comb on, so I took it back out later that day.  I still didn't get stung, but later I want to check again to make sure they were leaving the box, and got stung half-way back to the house.  I noticed there were a few bees outside the hive entrance that appeared to have their abdomens raised and were fanning their wings.  When capturing swarms, I've read this is a sign that you have got the queen, so maybe they had already accepted the queen at that point and had started protecting the hive.

I put 3 cups of 1:1 sugar syrup in the boardman feeder today.  I've put syrup in 2 other times, but the dogs knocked it over, so I don't know how much the bees ate and how much the dogs did or may have spilled.  But they are drinking it fast; the last batch was half gone in just a few hours on Saturday.  Sunday and today were too cold for them to get very active, though.  It finally warmed up this evening, but I haven't checked how much syrup is gone yet.  (I think the dogs have gotten used to it and will leave it alone, but if they don't, they'll learn once the weather starts staying warm.  Ginger, the small one, was doing something weird with her mouth all Saturday and kept eating grass and throwing it back up.  I think she got a bee in the throat or mouth, but we couldn't find a bump.  She didn't have a problem breathing, I think it just irritated her enough to make her throw up to get rid of it.)

Tomorrow, I get to open it up and make sure the queen is out of her cage, and that the bees have started building comb, and I'm looking forward to it.  I'll also pull off the top deep and get the can out, which should be empty, and get the hive down to a more manageable size for the bees.  It will make it easier for them to maintain the environment, and will keep them from building comb on the lid.  I won't add another body section until they have most of the frames filled and enough bees to cover them.

• So, April 3rd, installed 3 lb italian bee package.  Hive is facing north and is in a small clearing in our yard.  I hadn't actually realized that it was facing north until just now, so I will probably turn it before winter gets here.  The clearing is small enough that it probably won't get any good wind going in, but it shouldn't hurt.  The reason it is facing that way right now is simply because east-west was the most level, and facing it north-south let me tilt it slightly forward to drain moisture.
• April 4th and 5th, filled syrup bottle on boardman feeder with 1:1 (but lost track of amounts, as dogs spilled it)
• April 7th, refilled syrup jar with 3 cups of 1:1 syrup.