Reese and I went out to see the 'girls' on Saturday. Nice day but the day before the really bad storm, so we had to check. After a rather miserable time trying to light the smoker, we finally got it cranked up, donned our hats and went to it.
Reese's hive first. Smoked it and checked it out. They were starting to build out comb but not a ton. A little on each interior frames. They had eaten about 1/2 of the syrup so far. We didnt linger since the weather was chilly.
My hive next. The smoker was still going, we smoked them, peeled the inner cover off and checked them out. A little burr comb on the inner frames. I scraped it off and scraped it down into the hive. Great, now what. We removed 4 frames, and Reese reached in to grab the burr comb and knock the bees that were attached to the comb. I looked down and saw all the bees peering up at me from the middle frames. So cute. All lined up and checking me out. Right about that time, the noise level increased dramatically, and there was more flying activity. Reese goes: 'better finish up because we just ran out of smoke....'On with the inner cover and we closed the hive up tightly. Rocks on the top to keep the covers on.
We shared a beer with Chris Yoder as we talked about his farm. We'll bring beers next time.
