Bee Yard Visit March 29

Mark and I finally carved out time today to make the two-hour drive and visit our bees at the bee yard.  Our day-trip there and back is always a treat, that is once we're past the busy highways of Houston. The drive takes us northwest of the big city toward Chapel Hill, then Brenham and past Somerville. Eventually, we make it to the dusty back roads near Frenstat where we have our hives tucked away on 40 acres.  (Click on photos to enlarge.)

Just down the road from our bee yard, the neighbor has a few
exotic birds.  This peacock frequently greets us as we pass by.

The property where are bees our kept is owned by dear friends of ours.
It's a perfect place for bees; plenty of flowers, a full tank of water and
land free of herbicides and pesticides. 

While we were preparing our gear, we were also checking out the
great variety of wildflowers around our hives.

Indian paintbrush is in bloom right in front of our hive boxes.

Four-nerve daisies are coming up.

While dragonflies are pretty cool, they are also a predator of bees.

These sweat bees (hoverflies) are hanging out on a spiderword flower.

The sun has just come up and the bees are making their way
around the property to search for nectar.

Primrose speckle the countryside.

We found quite a bit of yellow chicory around the property.

This field is just north of our hives.

Dewberry flowers will soon turn into berries.

You may remember that during our last visit in early November, we'd prepared for the winter season without bees in our hives 02, 04 and 07.  Those are colonies that we lost last spring and summer, for various reasons.

We'd arrived at our bee yard today just as the sun had come up.  The weather was perfect for a day of beekeeping; a few passing clouds and the temperature was in the mid-60's.  We were happy to learn during this visit we did not lose any of our remaining hives over the winter months.  Hives 01, 03, 05, 06 and 08 are doing very well!  During this trip, we removed Apivar strips from each colony.  We hadn't planned on leaving the strips in through the winter, but that's what happened as we couldn't make time for a bee yard visit.  Mark and I do not plan on harvesting honey this year, so having the Apivar in the colonies this late in the season won't effect us or the bees.

Our bee yard upon arrival.
No bees are in hive boxes 02 and 07 (they're empty).

The colonies were very quiet when we arrived.
The bees were just coming out to forage.

Hive 01 had tons of bees, both in the top deep and the lower deep hive box.  They had some uncapped honey as well.  Although we didn't see the queen, we did see larvae.  We also saw a couple of queen cells and we wonder if the bees might plan to swarm, as that is what is expected this time of year.

Once we smoked the bees from the top, they moved downward
away from the smoke.  They made their way out on the landing board.

These bees are situated at the top of the bottom deep hive box.
There's a lot of them!

This hive 01 frame is full of bees.  Notice the few drone cells at the
top of the frame.  They should emerge soon.

Here you can see a large queen cell.  We damaged it as we were
pulling the frame, which is no problem, we removed the queen
cell anyhow.  To the left are more drone cells, one is yet to be
completely capped by the bees.

Here are tiny larvae in hive 01, some being fed by the worker bees.
Other larvae are older and are almost fully capped.

Hive 03 is very similar to hive 01, but without as many bees.  They were also extremely calm, which makes it easy on us to get in and get out of the hive quickly.

Here are several bees situated on a very nice patch of brood.

The hive 03 bees don't seem to be very crowded, at least not yet.
When the brood emerges, the population will grow quickly.

Hive 05 is similar to hive 01 and 03.

Once again, the bees make their way onto the landing board to
escape the smoke from our smoker.

Hive 05 bees upon opening the hive.

This frame has some brood soon to hatch.

When we lifted the top deep hive box, we disrupted a section of
comb that was in between the boxes. The bees are quick to
collect the spilled honey.

We also disrupted some brood from in between the boxes.
It shouldn't be there in the first place, but it's always sad when
it happens.  You can see a drone was ready to emerge from his
damaged cell.  We're happy to report that he made it out of his cell safely.
Notice the new egg in the cell to the right.

Hive 06 is our pride and joy.  It has beat the odds several times.  While it is a small colony, the queen has managed to keep the hive going since May 23rd last year when we thought the colony was doomed.  We're hoping she will produce more brood and grow her colony, as she is a little behind in that regard.

Hive 06 is only one deep hive box and it had only a
few frames of bees.

There are about 4 frames of bees in the colony.  The two set aside
were added before winter and at that time were full of honey.
We pushed all the frames together and hope the colony grows fast.
We did not add extra frames to fill the box, as the bees would have to
work hard to keep pests from making a home inside all that empty space.

Our dutiful queen is on this frame.  Can you spot her?

Hive 06 queen is near the center here.

Hive 08 has been our most aggressive colony for awhile now.  We left the super on the hive through the winter, as it had a tiny bit of honey in it and we wanted the bees to use it.

This is the only colony that has a super through the winter.
While it's unusual to keep a super on in the winter, there was some honey
in the frames and the bees needed the honey more than us.

Hive 08 bees are filling the super with new honey.  We will not harvest
this honey for our use, which is the purpose of the super.
The bees will keep this honey for themselves this year again.

Hive 08 queen excluder is still in place.  Since it's not disrupting
in any way, we left it in place.

Mark and I love beekeeping mostly because we continue to learn so much about them.  We think their work is fascinating.  We'd love to harvest our own honey this year, but we've found that we haven't had time to dedicate to growing the colonies and their honey stores.  We hope that next spring we will find the time, because we'd really enjoy the process of harvesting and we'd certainly having our own honey.  Until then, we'll continue to visit our bees and work to keep them healthy, while we continue to learn more and more about them.