Winter

Winter work in the shop. Cleaning and painting old boxes, building hive stands, and repairing frames.

Dec. 31, 2010, a nice day has brought the bees out to play. They were enjoying the new hive stand with the slanted landing surface.

Bee Candy

A quick peak at this weak colony to verify that indeed the bees are using the candy. We have had 2 weeks of hard winter weather during the last weeks of late fall. Winter comes tomorrow.

Bee Candy

This is box #7. It is the first hive that I will check to see how the bees are accepting the new candy. A peak through the center hole of the inner cover spikes my interest.

I had to lift the lid to take a look at the bee party.

This is box #9. It has the only prepared candy board which is 7/8 inch deep. There were a couple of bees near the candy. I will follow up in a few days to see if the bees have moved onto the food.

Box #1 is a 5 frame colony of VSH bees in a divided brood box.

Box # 8 shows the 3/4 inch shim being used to give space for the candy on the top bars. The bees seem to be enjoying the new food source.