Monday, September 6, 2010

A new hive box




Hive inspection today:
Despite freezing each broodcomb for at least 24 hours, today there were still a lot of shb larvae, and even more wax moth caterpillars, which are a disgusting, horrible color and destroy the combs from the inside in a very creepy way. There was also a gross, smelly pool of sludgy ruined honey oozing all over the hive floor, with bees drowning in it and shb grubs swimming. Things were bad enough that I removed and destroyed four bars of brood comb. I left 3 more in the sun all day, in hopes that would kill the remaining grubs, but it did not. Those bars are now back in the freezer, leaving the bees with two combs at the very front of the hive which so far they have managed to keep clean.
During the inspection and cleaning, I saw some bees doing what Jordan calls the "I know where the queen is" dance. Do they really?
The bees cleaned up a lot of the good honey from the damaged combs, in a reassuringly purposeful way.
We (mostly) built a new hive box today. It will have a screened bottom, with a removable board to close it if need be. I'll be trying to finish that up tomorrow. We are thinking the only way forward is to shake or brush these bees into their new box. Jury is still out on whether we will be able to relocate the box in what we hope is a better spot. More homework is in order.

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