Home Sweet Home

Notes: I put a new frame inside of the one farthest from the follower board. The sugar water that Julie added on Monday is almost gone.

It's good to be back! A big thanks to Julie for keeping the bees fed while I was away and making sure that the hive stayed in one piece during the big storm last week.

The bees were lively today, bringing in pollen with colors ranging from white to orangy-red. At 3:30 when I went out to do the hive inspection, they were busily pouring in and out of the tiny entrance and forming a small cloud in front of the hive as they waited to go in. The last time Nana was here she kept saying, 'Now you can understand what people mean when they say 'busy as a bee!'' Dad thinks I should put the larger entrance reducer on, but I think they are fine.

I finally got smart today and put a small table near the hive with a pen and paper so that I could record my observations from the inspection. Here's what I noticed:

• Things were stickier than normal. I think that's due to the syrup. It was also easier to move the frames around--they didn't stick to each other has much as they normally do.
• There was a yeasty smell. From what I've read, this could mean chalk-brood, but I haven't seen any little mummies about, so I'm a little mystified. My other thought was that the honey might be fermenting--I don't know why that would happen though. I'm going to wait and see if the smell is still around on my next inspection.
  
• Here is the status of each frame starting from the one furthest from the follower board:

1. One side is completely empty. The other is about 1/3 full of capped honey
2. One side has capped brood and eggs. The other has capped honey, capped and uncapped brood and eggs.
   
3. This one has mostly capped brood on both sides with some uncapped honey at the top of each side of the frame.
   
4. Honey and capped and uncapped brood
5. Pollen, honey, capped brood
6. All pollen and honey. It is quite pretty to see all the different colors of pollen. One of the bees on this frame had a shiny looking pollen load, as though it had been moistened.

My gloves and hive tools were really sticky today. I need to clean them but have been avoiding it because I'm not exactly sure how to. I'm going to try rubbing alcohol for the metal tools and look around for suggestions for cleaning the gloves, which are goat skin.

I think deciding to feed the bees was the right thing to do. They seem so much stronger now and like they may be able to build up some decent stores. Fingers crossed.