Thanks for the heads up guys, time to dust off the beequipment eh.
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It is amazing what a difference a 100km or so can make. Looking forward to when mine starting picking up like that
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Seems that way. My hive weight has been pretty stable, slightly up and down around the same weight, since about mid June. However, itās now starting to look as though itās going to be increasing and the improving weather only seems to be reinforcing the need for my first inspection of the season in the next week or two.
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That was my season last year. This year my big LL decreased by ~7kg over the last three months and ~2.4kg in the last month. Last year, because it was drier, it had already started to increase in weight because of the blooming weeds.
My other long lang with scales is only 16 frames built out (of 32) and so has responded proportionately to what the big 32 frame one has.
Adam
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Emptied out some honey tubs the other day and left the tubs outside. After a couple of days I was expecting to see bees cleaning the tubs up. Nope. Plenty of pollen coming in and apparently plenty of nectar also reflected by the weight increases mentioned above.
Looks like fine weather next weekend, time to crack the propolis for a peek me thinks.
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For anyone in the northern suburbs Iād give a strong suggestion you plan a hive inspection the first chance you getā¦ Bit busy at the moment but Iāll post details when I get a chance.
ā¦ Basically, my hive now has my hybrid Super on it.
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Hi Alan, I did my inspection 3 days ago and found all frames 80% or more filled. Put the Flow super on straight after the inspection and today I notice major bee activity, preparing the comb for honey. All looking great.
This has all happened over the last week with all the sunny weather with bee activity increased 3 fold. Now hoping for a good flow this spring/summer.
Also it appears swarming season has started, I caught a small swarm for the local bowling club. I have them temporarily in a 4 frame nuc box while I get my 8 frame box ready. They seem to be happy enough and doing orientation flights. Cheers, G
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If anyone in the northern suburbs is curious my bees brought in 540g of nectar today, given the good weather.
You can take that as an indication of how your own hives might be going 
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That is good to know. Did you see how much that converts to overnight as they evaporate off the water?
Those near me may still be losing weight, mine are decreasing ~100g per day still with the odd positive one.
Adam
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Hi Alan, I have just put the flow hive on.
Lots of activity and orientation flights in front of the brood box, especially when the sun is out.
I will do an inspection next week.
Just looking at the activity on the landing board, there does not seem to a lot of pollen brought in. I donāt have any weight measuring equipment. G
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During night time hours, over the past few days, the incremental loss in mass is between 20-35% of whatever the days increase was.
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Iāll be interested to hear how your inspection goes.
I havenāt been back in since my inspection the other week. At the time I had plenty of pollen.
Based on mass increase theyāve potentially filled most of one flow frame. That being said, I had two empty wired frames they had to build out tooā¦ So if a flow frame is nearly full the current nectar flow is stronger than I think.
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Did a rapid partial inspection of the hybrid Super yesterday (my little boyās first bee suit arrived so I couldnāt say no) and the flow is certainly stronger than I had anticipated. Theyāve built out two full traditional deep frames, started to fill them and, although I didnāt look too closely, appear to have started filling the flow frames too. I donāt think it was just a case of moving nectar/honey around.
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Noice, what do you think the nectar source is? Im not seeing a lot going on here in my area. Where abouts are you Snowy?
Citrus, Geraldton wax, Callistemon, hakea. They are the main things that Iāve noticed in bloom around me.
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If anyone is interested, in the last 7 days my hive weight has increased by 1.8kg.
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Iām interested, want to share it with me through WiFiscales? I can share mine with you too.
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Fantastic, thank you for the info and yes anyone is interested.
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Inspection updateā¦for those that still read this thread. Key points:
- The colony is absolutely bursting at the seems. Thankfully they were mild mannered and I didnāt use alot of smoke. Unluckily got stung through my glove right at the end as I was putting everything back together.
- Flow frames 99% full but uncapped (even portions of the frames that are not usually touched). Didnāt check the moisture content. Iām going to wait until it is mostly capped as I harvest in-situ and it reduces issues with flooding.
- Basically wall to wall brood with negligible honey. Three of five frames had a good mix of pollen and brood.
a. Three frames that were pollen+brood were closer to the wall, which I was a little surprised at as that is the side of the brood box that has a more stable temperature profile. - I did observe Drone cells but given the nectar flow Iām currently seeing I had been expecting more.
a. One thing different to previous years was that the Drone cells were mostly at the back of the frame, as opposed to previous years where theyāve been at the front of the comb
b. As usual most Drone cells were located around the edges of the frame but this time there was a couple of drone cells closer to the middle of the frame, completely separate to other drone comb on the comb around the edge - Two play cups on the edge of two different frames. Not surprising.
- I spotted the biggest redback Iāve ever seen happy at home on the bottom board. Well fed too.
- Only 2 wax moth larvae were spotted on the bottom board. I wonder how much the redback helped with this relative to the strength of the hive. I usually spot a few more (4-6?) this early in the season.
- Only 3 small roaches were spotted. I put this down to a combination of the weather warming up (so the roaches donāt need the warmth of the hive) and the fact the colony is strong.
- Didnāt spot the Queenā¦but I wasnāt specifically seeking to. I was more focused on inspecting the health of the colony and overall condition of the colony and honey stores!
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Hi @SouthEastScarp, you say you do less inspections, at about what frequency do you inspect and what set up do you have, ie BB and supers? Cheers