Bee Yard Visit November 4

We'd been expecting cooler weather this month, so that means its time to check in on the bees and make sure they have enough honey to make it through the next few months.  More sugar water is always a good idea to give the bees a boost.  Mark and I also needed to treat our hives for varroa mites.  We made a trip to the bee yard on November 4 to take care of these things.  (Click on photos to enlarge.)

We sometimes get messy when beekeeping, but the worker bees
are always there to help clean up.  Waste not, want not...

Our hives upon arrival.  Note that hive 04 and 07 have been empty
for several weeks now.

We noticed during our visit, the worker bees are kicking out the drones.
This is normal and happens every year at this time.  Drones offer little
help during winter and use a lot of resources.  The workers don't tolerate it and
send them to their demise before winter comes.  Can you spot the drones here?

We were saddened, but not too surprised, that hive 02 was dead when we arrived.  That colony struggled for awhile.  When we visited last, we saw this hive only had two frames of bees and no honey.  While we gave them sugar water, it was not effective enough.

Our hives 01 and 03 were nearly perfect and prepared for the upcoming cold weather.  They both were full of bees and honey.  We removed the supers from both hives (they were empty anyway) and added Apivar strips to treat for varroa mites.

Hive 01 with Apivar strips in place.

Hive 01 bees with a heavy frame of honey.

Hive 03 bees with their honey.

Mark and I felt lucky that hive 05 was also ready to take on winter.  We took that super off too (also empty) and added Apivar.

Hive 05 bees built extra comb between their deep supers. 

Hive 05 honey stores.

Believe it or not, hive 06 is still hanging in there.  We cross our fingers every time we approach the hive, as it has been an underdog from for a long time.  But, they had hardly any honey.  Out of all of our colonies, hive 08 seemed to have the best honey stores, so we took a huge frame of honey from them and gave it to hive 06.  This was absolutely necessary to keep hive 06 going strong.  But, the bad news is that hive 08 didn't take to this well.  They were very upset at us and at the hive 06 bees.  They really went after their frame of honey, wanting it back pretty badly.  Several hive 08 bees tried to get into the hive 06 entrance to fight for their honey.  We did our best to smoke them and distract them, while the hive 06 worked their defense.  Mark and I could only smoke the bees for so long.  Now it is up to the hive 06 bees to do their best to keep the others out.

Hive 06 bees have only 5 frames.  We're leery to add more frames
because they will remain empty, giving lots of room for pests to call home.

Hive 06 with hardly any honey of their own.

Hive 06 queen, near the center of the photo.

We kept the super on hive 08, as it had a bit of honey in it and the bees seemed to be all over it.  And that hive is full of bees, so the extra space might be okay for them.  When winter is over, the super will be empty of honey.

Hive 08 with queen excluder in place.

Once again, Mark and I will cross our fingers and hope that we've done everything we could to help out our bees and make the next few months tolerable for them.