Returning to the hives on day 1.

I returned to the hives on May 5, 2013, Sunday afternoon.  It was warmer (mid-50's) and the hives were more active.  They appeared to be very similar to each other in activity.  I decided to take this as a good sign.  I figured:  If I did something wrong with one hive, it would appear to be different than the other hive.  I also thought it was pretty unlikely that I did something wrong with both hives...

Hive A, one day after installation of the package of bees and their Carniolan queen.

Hive B, one day after installation of the package of bees and their Italian queen.

Many bees were crawling in and out of the smallest hole in the entrance reducer.  Each hive had bees flying around in the front area.  Orientation flights, perhaps?  It was hard to tell whether any bees were flying out at a distance.  The hives are about 200 feet west of a pond.  That will likely be their main water source.  They can crawl down the cattails to access the water without falling in.

Here is a link to video 3 on YouTube.  There is no narration.  It is just a couple of minutes of video of each hive's entrance and the busy bees around that.

The goal for this trip was, of course, more video and pictures.  But, I also was to check the syrup feeders.  Ideally, they would be full yet, but with evidence of bees clustered underneath them, ingesting the syrup.  If they were empty, that would mean they leaked and were bathing the bees in copious amounds of 1:1 sugar syrup--not good.

This trip would require the smoker.  I should have better heeded the advice I read umpteen times, "Do a 'dry run' with your smoker."  My smoker came with free samples of some compressed wood bits.  Being used to a home pine incense log that I have, I expected these smoker pellets to burn very slowly (like over an hour or so).  I was wrong...  I ran out of smoke after the first hive.

Video 4 is on YouTube and shows the inspection of each hive.  I confirm that each hive has a nearly full pail of sugar syrup (so, it didn't leak).  Also, bees were clustered underneath the pail lid, taking sugar syrup.  These are each good signs.  I did not check the first hive's pollen patty, but the second one's patty was fresh and being eaten.  Lastly, each queen cage was free of marshmallow and it seemed that the queen had left.  There were a lot of workers in the queen cages yet (they could likely still smell her pheromones).  So, I left the queen cage in the hive, hoping that there would be fewer bees in it during the next inspection.  I'm not sure that this was the right thing to do.  Next time, I might leave it at the front entrance instead of above the inner cover by the feed pail as I did.

Speaking of the next inspection, I am to inspect the hives about 5 - 7 days after installation to see whether the queen seems to be laying eggs.  My goal is to ensure that the smoker works better next time (or that the person working the smoker is better-skilled next time!).