Pat opened the bee boxes as he usually does during the weekends. We have two hives--an old one and a new one. The old one was started last year, and the bees are docile and friendly. We almost never get stung by the old bees. They have a hive body (two big boxes for their brood, honey and pollen to keep the hive going) and two supers (smaller boxes of of honey which can be harvested). The new bees were started from a package this year, and have only a hive body and one super. These bees are not docile and friendly though--they are aggressive and will sting with little provocation. Pat can get away without wearing the bee suit for the old hive, but not the new one. The do not like to have their hive opened! Pat thinks that the difference is genetics. The old hive's queen was bred to be docile, and the new hive's may not have been. He thinks he may re-queen the hive with one from the old hive, if we can find a queen cell.
Pat examines a frame from a super of the old hive. Notice he doesn't have the gloves on.
He pulls out the frame to see how much honey the bees have stored. These top boxes (the supers) are for honey storage that is extra. We can take these and not hurt the colony during the winter.
Pat smokes the bees in the old colony. The smoke makes the bees calm down. It makes them think there is a forest fire, and in a fire bees gorge themselves on honey. So when you puff smoke in the hive, they disappear into the hive and stick their heads into the comb. Just a little smoke keeps the old hive in check.
The photo is kind of blurry, but what it shows here is capped honey. This is what we want! The cells that look like they are glistening are uncapped honey. The bees bring back nectar and store it in the comb cells one dropful at a time until the cell is full. Then the worker bees fan their wings to create air circulation. They do this until they drive off most of the water in the nectar. When they have it right, they cap it for storage.
Pat estimates that we will get about 60 lbs of honey this year! This is only our 2nd year for bees. The triangular panel to the right in the picture is a bee escape. It is to allow the bees to get out from the super so that next weekend we can harvest.
