Today’s experiment: can I reprocess financial documents into mini fire logs for the smoker? (Our shredder broke)
Grocery store with and without bees →
Not bad, but don’t oranges need bees too?
Five hours after treatment of Formic acid, an organic miticide. Bees are bearding and have tossed out some dead larva and bees. Ants are having a field day. Tough love.
Applied one treatment of Mite Away Quick Strips (Formic Acid) to Far hive; added a super set slightly ajar for additional ventilation. Hope not too much rain from derecho will get in. Hive seems healthy but not growing, which I guess means it’s not healthy. Stuck at three boxes.
Near hive continues to outperform; top super is 60% full of nectar already. That make three supers on that hive—if they start capping the top one, I’ll do an early harvest.
Very minor setbacks
Ants are back after the rain; I’ve run out of cinnamon. The solar wax melter has stopped working—it got so hot that the acrylic panels distorted and they don’t fit right anymore. Did not see that coming. Where do I buy glass?
Bee Log, Week 6
Quick inspection. Near hive is very healthy, they’ve mostly filled the super with nectar (still uncapped). I’ve added another super on the hive, which is 5 boxes high now.
Far hive is more active than before, but still an also-ran. Even brood nest frames (about 6 of them) feel a little underpopulated. Opened up the hive entrance to full; there’s no traffic jams but it’s hella hot outside. I haven’t seen any more deformed bees crawling the roof, but I suspect the ants may be eating them before I notice. Speaking of, I saw no evidence of ants lurking in the hive; swapping to the solid bottom board seems to have adequately upped hive security.
I’m not very fond of the Far queen; she seems kinda lazy about laying.
The solar wax melter is working great; 230 degrees F inside the box today.
