Controlled burn this spring?

The prescribed burn that I discussed in my September of 2014 entry was postponed to this spring.  Prairie Restorations, Inc. believes that they will conduct the burn this month yet.  Ideally, it would be done before the bees arrive, but I believe we can burn around the hives and the bees shouldn't be overly bothered.

Controlled burn planned for fall of 2014.

Our two hives are at the edge of our ~40 acres of restored prairie.  This fall, we plan to do a controlled burn of the prairie.  To minimize property damage, fatalities, and other catastrophe, the fine folks at Prairie Restorations, Inc. will be helping us.

The image below is not mine, and comes from here.

A prescribed or controlled burn of a prairie.

Hives busy this afternoon... Swarming? Hot?

First, I'll load in a panorama shot of the hives in their prairie with the backdrop of the forest.  If you click on the image, it should load up a larger view.  It is wide enough that you may have to scroll it sideways or otherwise manipulate the image, depending on your computer or device.


Click to enlarge this panorama view of the hives (roughly center of pic).


Here is a YouTube video of the mite count (first half of the clip) and my attempt to re-set the entrance reducer without getting stung (second half).

As we approached the hives this afternoon for a visual-only inspection, we saw a visitor....

Ground squirrel.

I don't think that the squirrel family of animals eats hives or honey, so I'm going to assume the little fella had no evil intentions.

Back to the hives, we saw that the hives were busier than we are used to seeing.  More bees were on the outside of the hive, and many were flying in front of the hives.  It has been quite warm and humid, so my hope is that this activity is normal and not indicative of a problem, and absconding, or a swarm.

One thought is that the colony is old enough that some of the newer bees may be starting to forage.  If this is the case, they may be making orientation flights; after all, this might be the first time that they've been out of the hive.  The movement in front of the hive seemed to look like orientation flights to me, but I'm certainly no expert.

I could also see that Hive B's entrance reducer had somehow been knocked out of place and deeper into the hive.

Entrance reducer has been knocked out of place.

I'm interested in why the entrance reducer was out of place.  I have read that the bees's activity can move the entrance reducer.  However, this is usually in the form of pushing the entrance reducer further out.  It seems to me that this was pushed in.  Perhaps a skunk?  A mouse?  I may need to set up my trail camera in this area to see what is happening during the night and while we aren't at the hives.

I wanted to look inside the hives, but this may need to wait until later in the week.  I am hoping that I won't find an intruder in Hive B.

Beehives are ready.

Here is a brief video showing some of the landscape surrounding the beehives.  The trees mark the start of a forest that has several deep ravines.  Many of the ravines start on our prairie.

Later in the day, I was able to drag a photographer out to the site to get a picture of me with my handiwork.  The photographer was too modest to allow her own picture to be taken amongst the glorious, burgeoning apiary.

Beekeeper flanked by "Hive A" and "Hive B."

The beehives are in the prairie.

This afternoon, I cleared and roughly leveled some land in our prairie.  The two beehives will have trees to the North and the West.  This will break the winter wind nicely.  They will have good sun for most of the day, including early morning sun.  The early sun will warm the hive so that the bees will be more likely to start foraging earlier in the day.

Starting to clear the old prairie grasses.

Over the cleared land, I placed overlapping layers of landscaping fabric.  On that, I placed the patio/paver stones.  They are 24" x 24" stones.

Partway through the back-breaking project.

After the 14 stones were in place, I trimmed back the excess landscaping fabric.  The end result is below.  They are fairly level.  You couldn't roller skate across the things, but it is good enough for government work.  And, it should be good enough for the bees.

Final layout of the fourteen 24" x 24" patio/paver stones.

My thoughts on using the pattern above:  (1) I could have both hives on the same platform.  This saved on stones as I didn't need to make two completely separate areas; (2) The extra stones in the front would keep more of the bees's flight path clear of the grasses.  The grasses on our prairie routinely grow to 6+ feet.

Beehives are in place and ready for the bees that are coming ~5/1/2013.