Pre-winter hive check

The bees are mellow and enjoying the late fall warmth. There are lots of bees, some brood and a fair amount of honey. I intend to feed with 2 to 1 sugar through out the winter. Switched back to deep on bottom, medium in the middle and another above the queen excluder. Moved hive from wobbly base to the original hive base.

Hive Check

Hive 2, it will always be #2, has flourished in the absence of the old hive.
Layer 2 - medium. About half brood, and half honey.
Layer 1 - deep. Some brood, some pollen and honey, but only top 2/3 rds of each frame has comb.

I switched layer 1 and 2, so now the medium is on the bottom and the deep is above this. To try and encourage the comb to be expanded down in the deep.

I added an empty medium over the top of the queen excluder. And I will feed them up over the next 6 to 8 weeks to prep them for winter stores.

Tour de Hives

I participated in the tour de hives, Austin on August 15th, 2015. I showed the damage wax moth can do :-( And between visitors I stripped out all gunk from the four boxes of the old hive.

Hive Check

Since I last checked everything seemed fine until about a weeks ago. It looks like hive 1 (my first hive) has way less bees than normal? Maybe they swarmed I thought, so I went to check it out. But found larva crawling out of the entrance. Uh Oh! I pulled the hive apart to find only a few thousand bees left. And wax moth, everywhere. larva, moths, cocoons, and the ugly silky web they leave, the entire hive is gone, and I am sad. I guess there will not be honey extraction!

Hive 2 has bees and looks OK on the surface. Didn't want to probe to deep in case I transferred wax moth eggs over to my one remaining hive.

Hive check

With my interruptions to life as usual, this is the first time I've been in the hives in a long time. I've been keeping an eye on them when I lock up the chickens and everything seemed fine. Hive 1 (old hive) four boxes seems to have a full box of honey, I'll save it for processing on the tour de hives. Then a box mostly honey and some empty frames, then 2 boxes mostly brood. They are as usual a little feisty but less then when they were HOT.
Hive 2 is OK, always quite than 1. It has deep with some brood and some empty frames, and a medium with some brood, honey and a bunch of pollen on top.