First hive inspection

So have recently caught three swarms
The first two I have blogged about previously
The other one, the latest was a night time action in the grass Tuesday last week.

Grass Swarm capture details.
The Father-in-law was ripping up plastic in the melon field now picking has been completed and suddenly halfway up a row bees surrounded the tractor cabin
Once a distance away, an inspection back up the row, showed a swarm enveloping a lump of grass even after being disturbed by machinery

That was mid afternoon - took me till 8:30pm to get there due to a daughter's judo evening in town, so I was really hoping it would still be there, as other swarms have been found in afternoon but gone by the time I get there.

The previous swarms I have gotten to in time to capture, I had shaken into the hive boxes from higher positions than the hive box - but this swarm was so low to the ground that wasn't going to happen unless the laws of gravity change dramatically

What to do??
Maybe cut the clump of grass off at base and lift clump into a box - but this would really disturb the bees and I also didn't really want to put a bee suit on

So instead I cut the fly screen netting off the bottom of two medium sized hives I had placed out for swarm traps. Then placed them together base to base.

I replaced the top bar timber and lid on the top hive box and then placed the whole thing on top of the swarm as it clung to the lowest parts of the clump of grass. I also taped up one set of entrances and left the top hive box entrances open. Fortuitously ,the shape of the upside down top bar hive working like a funnel to the hive box above it.

The hope was the bees would work their way up the 'funnel' from the grass clump into the top hive - like what they see and make it their new home.

I also had a time/space issue as the in-laws needed the paddock the swarm was in the middle of, for prep work for next season asap - we are talking massive disc plows doing several passes across the entire field, then seeders for the wet season green manure crop. This while workers still here prior to rainy season when the dirt here turns to bottomless quicksand with the first rain to hit it - and once that happens no machinery can move in the fields!

When I arrived the next afternoon - all had gone to plan - awesome

Then I waited till just on dark when most of the bees would be inside the hive
I DUC taped the open entrances of the top hive box - so no bees could escape (or attack me!) Well, once I started fussing about with the boxes in prep to move them. I separated the two hive boxes - the bottom one was empty, so hoped all bees were in the top hive box. Once separated I placed a pre-made screened based to place the top hive box into and strapped - the lid, hive box and based together with a racket strap.

Too easy - well when everything goes according to plan anyway!
It won't always be so - almost guaranteed!

But currently "touch wood" - AWESOME! - three hives now and still I have not out laid any money for hives or bees!

Hive Inspection
So today two weeks after the first swarm was captured, I set about to inspect the hives
My daughter has designated herself my "right-hand helper" and wants to be in everything we do towards keeping bees. She even has been searching internet for her own bee keeping suit and loves a particular pink version. But maybe for Xmas

So for today's hive inspection, I placed her in a large suit big enough for me and taped up arms and other excess material of the suit.

Here we are ready to go beekeeping!
She was really pumped about getting near the bees after only looking over the fence at them for the last two weeks

The suit I borrowed for me is a bit small for me, so I tape up the ankles as they legs creep up and expose ankles to stings. While the sleeves end half way from elbow to wrist but my arms are so hairy not as great an issue

So off we go - hive tool, camera and smoker in hand

We looked at the Post hive first - this was the small swarm that was clinging to the top of a fence post.
Second top bar into inspection had a small piece of comb being built about the size of a dessert spoon but the next 7 top bars had comb 15-20cm across plus plenty of honey and the occasional orange flash of pollen in the comb.

Due to a perceived lack of local flowers (i.e. haven't seen any), I have been providing a feed for the three hives out of the one plastic take away dish with some sugar/water mixture but there was more honey stored in the comb than this mixture could have supplied. So the bees are gathering feed from somewhere despite this being the end of the dry season and not much growing or flowering vegetation around.

So #1 hive is small but growing - didn't see queen or brood in the several top bar's of comb which is sort of worrying

Next onto the "Fence" hive - this was the massive swarm clinging to fence wire and the weed growing over the wire. With the bees that stung  me 30-40 times when I first tried to move them into hive box with me having no bee suit on.

Back to the inspection today....
Online info and research presumes that the new bees introduced to a top bar hive build comb from front bars towards the back of the hive. But this swarm has started building at back and worked way through to front. Later I might re-adjust the top-bars to do what most tell me should happen. I might actual transfer this large hive of bees into a large topbar hive, one with 30 topbars.

This hive has a large amount of bees and nearly every one of the 16 top bars has comb on it - a few almost full sized comb to fit the size and shape of the hive box. A bit of comb was attached to side but I scraped and shaped that to avoid issues later.

Again lots of honey in the comb and a few speckles of pollen.
But also only a brief glimpse of a queen (maybe) and no brood seen.

But plenty of comb, bees active - so hoping queen is in there - no brood again - a worry. If none by next inspection might have to really search hard for the queen on the comb and then if none - get a queen posted.

I was only going to inspect the first two hives but then decided to look at third even though only been five days since the swarm was captured.

It too has good numbers of bees, surprisingly plenty of comb with good quantities of honey and the now usual touches of pollen like the other two hives. but again I didn't spot the queen or brood.

So very pleased with my three hives so far - they seem very happy and calm while living in these hives so different form the Langstroth hives they left when they swarmed.

My daughter showed very good attitude to the bees - was in a way quite disappointed some bees didn't land on her gloved hands. it was a great introduction to handling the bees for her

Have videoed the whole process this time -
Find attached a shortened version focusing on my daughters actions (for her mum to show others). it is about two minutes long

The other clip below is a bar by bar version of each of the three hives examining each comb.
Next time I need to get camera closer to the comb - so sorry if not much up close detail.