growingthehive-blog

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The hive fell :(

Unfortunately the hive couldn’t weather the swarm of small hive beetles. We tried shrinking the hive to one body, we tried both the CD style traps, as well as a well style trap with cooking oil. The well trap was doing well, but it seems that it wasn't enough and the beetles laid larvae in the frames and in the sugar water frame feeder (blech). The bees absconded, I hope they are having a good time. We sealed up the hive and left in the CheckMite that we were going to put in this week and we are going to try to get a new package of bees, hopefully it isn't too late in the season to hive more.

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Remember! Bee-lack lives matter! Donate to your local charities and protest safely (remember to socially distance, wear a mask, and know your rights if arrested!)

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Bee Blog Part 9

We opened up the hive this Sunday to install our hive beetle traps and check in on our girls. The girls were doing well, and we cleaned out the sugar water frame feeder of dead bees and some possible hive beetle larvae. We replenished the sugar water and added two hive beetle traps, one on the top part and one on the bottom to catch hive beetles and any ants that get in as well. The bees are doing great!

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Bee Blog Part 8

We opened up our hive today, and saw the queen in the second hive body, with eggs where the comb is! The bees are drawing out a lot of comb on the frames on both the top and bottom parts of the hive. Despite a little sugar water spill which we cleaned up (never leave out sugar water, other bees might try to rob your hive), the inspection went well!

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Bee Blog Part 7

We inspected the hive today, and our industrious bees had drawn out enough comb that we needed to add the second hive body! We added it and increased the size of the entrance reducer because the previous queen’s (may she rest in sweets) eggs were finally hatched! Our new queen is doing very well, adding lots of eggs wherever she goes. The hive is going extremely well!

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Happy World Bee Day!

https://www.un.org/en/observances/bee-day The UN is celebeerating world bee day today!

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Bee Blog Part 6

Sorry for late post, we’ve done a lot of bee stuff this weekend. We verified that the queen was released and saw her fraternizing with the worker bees on one of the frames (we have a Langstroth hive). We saw she laid eggs, too! The previous queen’s eggs have stated hatching and this Friday we will need to increase the size of the entrance reducer to account for it. One of us got their first sting after accidentally crushing a worker when gripping the inner cover to replace it. They were fine, luckily, but worker bee #249 will stay in our hearts. The hive is going great with our new queen!

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Bee Blog Part 5

We hived a new queen today! The inspection was expected, there was no new eggs or larvae. The bees were literally all over the queen, they were quite friendly. We added sugar water and they loved it. Next week we will probably add another hive body if necessary.

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We are now caught up with the bee blog and will update every Saturday when we inspect the hive.

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Bee Blog Part 4

Our 3rd inspection on May 2nd was a sad one as there was no queen or new eggs :(. The queen is gone but the hive is still buzzing and collecting more pollen then before as the workers don’t have to help the eggs or larvae because there isn’t any. We ordered another queen that should arrive by May 9th by our next inspection so we will hive her then. The rest of the week showed lots of activity due to the bees only collecting honey. Long live the next queen bee.

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Bee Blog Part 3

2nd inspection was a day late but still showed excellent condition. New eggs and larvae were noted and we saw the queen! The queen is performing well as around 3/4 of 2 frames are full of eggs! The rest of the week went by normally with the bees bee-ing nice and collecting lots of pollen.

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Bee Blog Part 2

1st inspection on April 18 showed a released queen laying eggs near pollen collected. We removed burr comb built around the queen cage. The rest of the week showed the bees busily buzzing around getting honey for the hive.

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Bee Blog Part 1

1st week after getting bees we hived them, our lovely queen has a blue mark so we can see her better. We added a plate with water so they could drink and to have some extra weight on the hive. A storm blew in, but the bees were fine. The bees cleaned out the dead bees from the package. And that’s the first week! (Saturday to Friday so we can start with inspections each time)

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Bee Blog Info

Every week this account will post what happened with our bees. Right now we will post a bunch to catch up and then continue updates weekly from there.

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Some of our girls!

#bees #beekeeping #donate #charity #bee #outdoors #beehive #hive

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Hello! This is the official Tumblr blog for the growing the hive charity! For more information please go to: https://sites.google.com/view/growingthehive/home

Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/growingthehive?fan_landing=true