Beltane                     Waning Flower Moon

Mark came over and we suited up.  The bees have been busy.  I saw the small larvae curled up in the very bottom of a comb’s cell, several of them.  We investigated each frame, finding one frame with many capped cells, maybe 60%.  The bees did not seem interested in us.  We only used the smoke once and that was as we removed a frame with a large number of bees working on it.

Mark said it was a little early, but we decided to put hive 2 in place, moving up into it one of the frames with brood and spreading the others out a bit on the bottom since it left only 9 frames below out of 10.  Much of this management of the hive involves swarming.  If the bees feel their space has become  too cramped, some of the hive, maybe all, will fly away into a tree, then send out scouts for a more roomy place.  This means less to no honey at the end of the season.

After this next phase, we will switch the top one onto the bottom and put the bottom on it.  The third and last hive goes on top of both of them.  After this last swap, the supers go on.

Lydia came over from next door.  She’s going to do some weeding and some heavier work like taking out yew that died over the winter.  Much of her initial weeding will happen over the week we’re gone.  It will be good to have some help.  Weeding becomes a chore around this time of year.