Sunday, 21 April 2019

Hive inspection with Girls - 20190415

So now I have my own bee suit - this means I can use my in-laws two bee suits for the Girls
Which means they can both come and help with Bees


My 6year old - Katie was very pleased with her look! and quite excited!
Ready to head down, start the smoker, set up the video
then put on the head veils, tape wrists



So to the inspection details......

Number 1 hive
Finally found the queen - Thanks to Amy's good spotting (8 minutes into the video below)
We found drone and worker cells and identified the difference
We found honey stores - uncapped but plenty of it
This means they have finally found some flowering trees - Melaleuca, I think starting to flower now the wet season has tapered off
The girls learnt lots, asked heaps of questions - had trouble with the dried horse poop i use for smoker fuel! likes it better when I topped up smoker with eucalyptus leaves

Number 2 hive
Doing much better, even has a little beard in the evening of bees hanging out the front of the hive
plenty of brood, plenty of honey - some even capped
starting to really fill out available space with comb

Even cut a small bit of honey comb out of one drawn comb for the wife, who loves honey in the comb (girls liked it too - it was a very light colour with no real significant taste or aromas)
The honey currently being stocked up is much darker
walking past the hives at night - the smell of rich honey is infectiously delicious!

Towards the end of the hive inspection Katie got stung through her gloves (she rubbed a bee off her hand and it retaliated) which shocked her a bit - but she handled it well and promised she would come and help next time despite the experience

Overall thought I had enough bees to split both hives but need to be patient for a while yet before I do that - uggghhh!

So very happy with the progress of both hives - but want more!

Hive inspection Video below has the girls asking heaps of questions
       - while I am a newbee too and still learning every day
             -  the answers to the girls questions might help some others, at the very least add some insight

Enjoy

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