Opened the hive yesterday.  The girls haven't expanded onto more than 4 frames. They have made comb going up, but not to more frames, yet. They will.

 I had a protein cake on top of three outer frames, so they would have enough to eat before enough flowers & trees could produce their own pollen. The protein cake is a gooey slab made out of mostly soy. Now that it's the end of May, there should be enough out there for them.  Plus the slab didn't look any more eaten than the last time I checked it, so they must be done with it. I bagged it up and put it in the freezer.  I have to do more research to see if I can use it again next year.  They aren't expensive, so there's really no need to be a cheapskate.

Some of the bees look like their eyes are smaller than the others. On closer look, they might just have more "hair" on their little heads.  I know, I know, more research is needed! 

Stay tuned! 
 

After all that depressing info about mites and viruses, I had to get into my hive. It's been so cold, rainy, or windy, I couldn't do it before today. When the sun finally came out, I put my bee hat on and tried to light the smoker.

Sucker wouldn't stay smokin'.

Went in without it. 

Oh!  The girls are so busy!  Three frames were full of bees back and front. They were building comb.  I pulled out only 2 and saw pollen stored in the lower part of the frames and either honey or water stored at the top. I was so excited about seeing all that wax comb, I forgot to check for the most important things! Eggs and/or Queen.

When Bill came home, we tried again.  He couldn't get the $*&@ smoker lit either. This time I looked at all the frames.  The center one (I'm supposed to number these, I guess) was full of capped brood!!!!!  That means bees will hatch (probably not the right term). 

While I was looking at one side with all the capped brood,Bill spotted the Queen on the other side. He gets a badge for that! I flipped over the frame, and there she was running around, longer and pointier than her workers.  If the Queen is alive, there are eggs.  I just didn't see them. 

I'll go back in next week.

With or without t

Last night I went to my 2nd meeting of the Greater Cleveland Beekeepers' Association meeting.  The speaker was the editor of Bee Culture magazine (no talk of new shoe styles for the season, sigh...), Kim Flottum.  Surprisingly, he lives in Medina County! The title of his talk was "Keeping Healthy Bees."

For 2-hours Kim told us about viruses and diseases and showed sick bees. The biggest problem for us backyard beekeepers is the varroa mite. It's rampant and can take over a hive if not watched.  It doesn't carry diseases, but its bite stresses out the bee (duh!), which weakens the bee's immune system, which then allows all kinds of terrible things to happen.

What to do: Spend 60% of my time controlling them. This means measuring how many of them every few weeks, trapping the Drone bees (gotta learn more about that), and heavily dusting the inside of the hive with powdered sugar! It makes the bees too slippery for the mites to hang on to. Plus the bees love it!

I like that what Mr. Flottum suggested was not using chemicals or antibiotics. These generally aren't good for us and they're not good for bees.

What I've done so far...

Got my first hive on March 18, 2009.

Set up a website for the Greater Cleveland Beekeepers Association. Check it out: www.greaterclevelandbeekeepers.org

Picked up the bees on April 20, 2009.