Tag Archives: urban beekeeping

I received an e-mail today that my package of bees will be arriving next weekend. I’m very excited about the prospect of starting a new hive, and I’m sure Queen Ramona Flowers is anxiously awaiting her new home.

Large Marge is an unstoppable egg laying machine. The girls have already filled out the 6th super I added two weeks ago which meant I had to add a 7th today. I’m getting worried that if they continue at this rate, I may need a ladder for my inspections. My second package of bees can’t get here soon enough so I can borrow some frames from Large Marge to help jump start the new hive and hopefully slow them down a bit.

I guess I need to start reading up on how to split a hive, but I’m also worried they are growing so fast that a swarm is inevitable. Anyone have any advice on next steps?

Even though I’m on day 10 of this nasty cold, I really didn’t want to wait another week to inspect the hive. Austin is bursting into bloom right now, and I didn’t want to be caught unprepared if the girls were preparing to swarm. So I donned my bee suit for the first spring inspection of my second year as a beekeeper.

The girls are pretty thirsty after hanging out in the hive for several months. We keep a bird bath partially filled with water that gives the bees a nice landing area to walk up to the water.

I took off the outer cover to see the girls looking up at me from the notch in the inner cover.

The top most super of the hive was all honey which I expected based on my last quick look a few weeks ago.

What I didn’t expect was the next super down to be pretty much all brood. Here is a frame that is partially filled with brood, but the other 7 frames had an even tighter brood pattern and filled the frames.

It was at this point that the girls started getting a bit disturbed so the photography unit had to retreat to safety. I went on to inspect each frame all the way down to the bottom of the hive. It was here I discovered Large Marge on the 8th frame of the 1st super. So it good to know that she is still alive and laying well. I saw excellent brood patterns as well as eggs which means she is still going strong. I also didn’t see any queen cells which means, at least at this point, the girls aren’t planning on swarming.

I did notice that the bottom super was pretty much drawn comb without anything in it. Bees move up the hive during the winter so I was expecting this. I decided to swap the position of some of the supers to encourage them to use all the available space, and it is also supposed to discourage swarming. I also added a 6th super to give them more room to grow.

By the time I started putting the hive back together, the girls were really worked up which is not surprising since I had basically disturbed every section of the hive. At the point I was adding the 3rd super back onto the hive, my worst case scenario came true. Somehow, a bee had made its way under my veil and was buzzing around my face. I started moving away from the hive to a place where I could try and remove the bee, but she decided to go ahead and sting me behind my right ear. I got into the house to have the stinger removed and to make sure I didn’t have any allergic reaction. This is officially the first time I’ve been stung by anything in my life, so I wanted to play it safe.

After a few minutes, I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to drop dead, so I put my veil back on and finished closing up the hive. This was a very memorable inspection, but overall, the hive appears to be strong and ready to take advantage of the spring nectar flow.

Spring is right around the corner here in Austin, and the weather is nice enough now to do my first full inspection of the season. Plants and trees are also starting to bloom including Texas Redbuds which are one of my favorites and a true indication that spring is finally here.

As the girls had plenty of honey from my last quick look, the main goal of the first inspection is to make sure Large Marge is still laying, and brood frames are still present. I may also reverse some of my boxes to encourage the bees to redistribute honey, brood, and pollen evenly in the hive. Bees generally like to move up in a hive, especially in winter, so reversing boxes will make sure they are using all parts of the hives evenly. It also makes them feel like they have more room to hopefully prevent a swarm.

As I was struck down with a nasty cold this past weekend, I’m hoping the beautiful sunny weather holds out until the end of the week. I also need to start preparing the area for the 2nd hive as I was totally lazy over the winter. April is fast approaching so I need to make sure I’m ready when the new package shows up.

I performed a quick February inspection today to make sure the girls had plenty of honey to last them through the end of the month and into the start of the wildflower season in March. I made a batch of 1:1 sugar solution with a touch of Honey B Healthy just in case their stores were running low. When I removed 8 frames of honey on October 2nd, 2010, I was slightly worried I was taking too much, but as it turns out, my fears were unfounded. The top two supers were still full or even fuller with honey than when I last checked in December.

Here I found evidence of some newly capped honey which is in the frame perch. I’m lifting a frame of older honey as a contrast.

So as it stands now, Large Marge is living large with ample stores of sweet delicious honey. This will be great when I start the second hive in April as I will be able to loan some full frames of honey to the new hive to give them a kick start of food and drawn comb for egg laying.