Inspection and Regestration

Yes, as of yet I'm not regestered with the Department of Apiary Services. Just today I made a few calls and the inspection for regestration is August 1st! Just in case you're wondering why I need to be regestered...

$30.00 reembercement if hives are destroyed by American Foulbrood

Unregestered hives can be destroyed by the state if owner isn't present

Helps me to meet other beekeepers

Informs me of any pesticide spraying in the area.

These are just a few of the reasons to be regestered. My only concern is if they find American Foulbrood in my hive durring the inspection for the regestration. If that's the case then the hive would have to be incinerated with all the bees inside. To me, my bees are like your dog or cat. The thought of having to kill them is just incomprehesable.

P.S. I will be making podcasts and will provide a link when I upload one.

Appalation Trail Return

I have finally come back from hiking 55 miles on the Appalation Trail. Our longest day was 15 miles and it seemed to go on forever. There really is no greater experience than to know that you must continue for water and that you are in an area that no one can help you. It's a complete self relience crash cource. Anyways, I've inspected my bees as usuall and found that I will need to super them(add splace for honey) next week! The population is booming and durring mid dayu hundreds and even thousands of bees can be seen flying up to twenty feet above the hive. Today was also the day when I was able to remove the enterence reducer. The bees are doing very well but, for the second week in a row I wasn't able to find the queen. I searched the entire hive for here but she's just to sneaky. The hive is entering its second brood cycle and there are no photos because I couldn't find anything that was worth taking a picture of. I did however make a music video with some of the photos and a song I wrote this spring. You can view it here. Be sure to tell me what you think.

I'm back...from the Bahamas!

The reason I haven't posted recently is that I've spent a little over the last week in sea of Abaco at the Bahamas. The weather was fantastic but, I missed my bees and worried about them as hurricane Dennis approached. I got back last night and apparently, the cover to the hive had been blown off. It was placed back on within what I think was probably just a few hours. I was worried all night that the brood had been chilled and died. I've just inspected and found that two full frames of brood had already emerged. There were thousands of workers that still had the downy, matted appearance after first comming out of their cells. This time I didn't see the queen as usuall but, I saw eggs and there were no queen cells so she's probably still doing fine in the hive. I am finding some insects becoming a nusence arround my hive. In one of the photos below you can see a type of mud dauber wasp building her nest. Since I've gotten the bees these things seem to be popping up everywhere. Earwigs are also showing up in the hive. To my knowlage these aren't the usuall pests of bees so that was rather odd. Anyways, my bees were a little more tempermental than usuall. I think it was the fact that their cover had been blown off and all the rain from the hurricane.

www.flickr.com

In the other photo you can see the cells after the brood emerged. They will continue to get darker with larval casings. If you look carefully you can see some worker bees with a matted apperance. These bees probably just saw light for the first time since they emerged less than a day ago!

P.S. Sorry I couldn't get the pictures of the queen. I searched the entire hive for her but, I shouldn't keep the hive open for more that twenty minutes and I ran out of time. I'll be hiking the Appalatian Trail next week so my next post will probably be later than usuall again.