Wow! Very nice bee yard.
We covered everything outside last night before an usually late freeze warning. It is to up to 80 F. by Thursday, so very much looking forward to the warmer temps.
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That’s just fabulous!! Do you plan to sell these cute bears?
I’m harvesting the first couple of frames on one Flow today 
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Definitely. 4 of them are already gone and all i did was go eat dinner. 
selling them at $20 a bear, no problem.
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My first nuc was just installed 2 weeks ago. Should I remove my entrance reducer yet? Maybe just during the day?
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I’d recommend just leaving it be. By the time they are full strength it will be time to reduce it again for fall/winter.
If they come through the winter strong you can open it up to a couple inches wide at both sides, blocked in the middle and leave it like that all season.
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Pretty pollen-yellow color, Cam!
Is the top box just there for a feeder? …asking because sometimes newbeeks have been known to prematurely slap a super on a new hive 
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Yes, 
there’s just a sugar syrup feeder in there. I’m not planning to take honey till next year. I’ll be thrilled if they just survive our long winters in Quebec Canada. I got a Miller feeder the other day and plan to maybe just fill it with sugar. Maybe mix in some Honey B Healthy.
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The color is leftover deck paint we used on our basement floor. I may add some decoration to it in the future 
Every day or so I inspect my tray. Thankfully I’m seeing no more chalk brood. That has seemed to resolve itself. I’m looking carefully for mites. Please give me some feedback about what you see here. Should I be concerned about tiny droplets of water? There are some teeny tiny things running around in one part, much much smaller than pictures of mites I’ve seen on bees. Thank you dear Beek friends 
Also, oddly, I hardly ever see bees on the flowers in my yard, daisy, echinacea, cutleaf coneflowers, plantain lilly, creeping bellflower, cow vetch, day lilies… BUT two bees seem highly interested in wet dirt. I even see them digging in it.They have ample “dirty” water by the hive. What’s going on?
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Maybe they prefer water a bit further away from the hive? Many people have found that bees will not take water or nectar that is less than about 20 feet from the hive.
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In relation to your bees not visiting your flowers: I’m in a similar situation with my Leptospermum garden. My Pink Cascades are putting on a beautiful display, with not one bee in sight. I know why, it’s because the bees are focused on the Eucalypts in the area that are in bloom.
A great learning video to watch is on You tube, The title is “City of Bees” They show the “language of the bees”. It shows how bees communicate the best nectar source to each other. Therefore bees will ignore all other nectar sources, bar the one they are focused on, until that runs out, or scouts find a better one.
It’s handy to understand this concept, because it allows us to answer similar questions or comments.
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Thank you all so much
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August 13th 2022
First hive inspection since installing a nuc two and a half weeks ago. Im on my own, so I couldn’t take pictures, and really need feedback. This is what I saw:
- 3 completely empty frames to one side and one on the other.
- One frame with 30% new empty comb.
- One frame with empty comb on one side and nothing on the other. This was one from the nuc with a comb board.
- 1 nuc frame with some spotty capped brood on one side and empty comb on the other… Might have been partially filled with nectar.
- I nuc frame with mostly capped brood and 3 or so uncapped… with white larvae in there on one side and spotty capped brood on the other with a lot of empty cells. I saw no eggs anywhere. I did briefly hold them up in the sun.
- One nuc frame of mostly capped honey
- One nuc frame with some capped brood on one side in the middle and up in the corner some greyish capped cells. The rest of of the cells and other side either looked empty or partially filled with nectar.
- No drone brood cells
- No queen looking cells
- Some comb built on the bottom of a few frames which I left alone.
The floor looked clean except for something that looked like a dead wasp. I hoped it wasn’t the queen.
I never saw the queen.
I scraped the propolis off the top of the frames and the inside of the top board. I tried really hard to be slow and gentle.
They were not too agitated. I squirted some “bee calm” sugar water lightly on the frames and a bit on the bees. I put an empty frame between the honey frame and a nectar/spotty brood frame but otherwise didn’t mix them up.
I refilled their syrup feeder. They have been really taking that in.
They have this month and most of September to prepare for winter. I hope they can do it. Hope the queen was ok.
I realize now I went in without my reading glasses on. I’m going to have to look again for eggs 
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Sounds pretty good to me, although not a strong colony yet. Did you see any pollen/bee bread? They will need that to build up the colony in time for winter.
Eggs are hard to see. Easier than spotting the queen, but still hard. Reading glasses, a bright LED flashlight or a camera are all helpful. If you see empty cells next to small white larvae, those would be good places to look for eggs.
I know that you didn’t see the queen, but if you saw uncapped larvae, she was in there between 3 and 9 days ago. The dead wasp probably was a wasp. If it was the queen, they would be making emergency queen cells, and you didn’t see any, so that is good.
It sounds like you did a very nice job. I would give them a week or so to recover. I don’t think it is worth going back in just to see eggs, but if you are opening the hive to feed them, that might be a good time to have a peek with glasses on. 
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Oh thank you, thank you, thank you so much. I did happen to peek again today with my readers on because I’ve been worried.
I saw LOTS of uncapped brood this time, of all sizes, from very small to large. I might have seen one cell with two eggs, which I know is not good, but I didn’t see any other cells with eggs. Lots of capped brood.
I might have seen the queen. She had her bottom in a cell. She wasn’t extra large though. Her coloring was like the other bees, with a striped abdomen that was longer than the others and more pointy but not as long as I thought a queen should be. I’m such a noob, how would I really know? I’m going to look up a lot of pictures of Queens to compare.
They are making some wonky honeycomb between two of the the empty frames. When I moved the frame I could see they were full of honey or nectar. I saw a few cells of yellow pollen.
They are trucking in the pollen as I watch the entrance (I found a good spot where I can get fairly close without being in their flight path). I love watching them take off in the morning and returning.
No queen cells that I could see. Thoughts?
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You are most welcome. It is great to help a conscientious beekeeper who is trying hard! 
Not a bad thing. We all make mistakes, including queen bees. As long as most eggs are not like that, it was just a mis-fire/double fire… 
Sounds like a queen to me. The other thing that I find helpful if the queen is not marked is that the thorax is much shinier than other bees. The thorax is the roundish part where the wings attach, behind the head and in front of the abdomen. Because it is shiny in queens, it tends to look quite a bit darker than other bees, which helps in spotting our elusive hive monarchs.
Hopefully you tidied that up. If not, wait for your next inspection in a week or two. If you don’t correct it, it will only get worse.
Great news. The only thing left for you to do now is to plan for winterizing your hive. Many people in Canada put insulation around the hive, and perhaps quilts on top of the hive when the weather cools down. Now is a good time to plan for that. Plus, think about varroa treatment if you really want to help them make it through.
Well done. I am proud of you! 
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