Bee Addition

This past weekend, we extended our bees. Even though we've only had them about two months, they were incredibly crowded in one brood box. So, Patrick and I bought the materials to build a new one a couple of weekends ago, the weekend we cleared all that dead wood out of the yard.

Here's a picture of the finished second brood box. It was simple to assemble and paint.

After putting it together, we had to build each frame to go inside. This is a ten-frame box, but we bought spacers to make it a nine-frame box, allowing the bees to draw out deeper comb for brood, pollen, and honey.

Here's a peek into the frames with one pulled out.

Saturday, we finally had the time to put the addition onto the old hive. We planned to take all the old frames out of the original brood box and install a spacer into it, then put five or six of the full frames back into the brood box and fill it with empty, new frames. This was going to be a challenge because the box was so full and the bees would be quite upset with being infiltrated, so we needed to smoker to be full. Again, we only owned one bee suit at the time (I bought a second one yesterday), so Patrick would be doing all of the hands-on work, while I simply brought him things and refueled the smoker as needed. I also set myself up to photograph the progress. Allow me to share.

First, P moved the full frames into the new brood box in order to install the spacer. Notice this frame he's holding up; it contains mostly honey. Some of it is capped, but most on this side of the frame is not capped yet.

This is that same frame being put into the new brood box. All of that white is capped honey cells. Honey frames are extremely heavy.

Here's all the old frames in the new box. Lots of bees here, but several still wondering around inside the old box, too.

Next, P installed the spacer into the old box. Notice how he tries not to harm any remaining bees. You can also see the smoker on the ground, letting out a little smoke.

As Patrick was doing this, I went back to get the new frames to be mixed with the full ones in both brood boxes. Here's a stack of them. We actually had one more than we needed. I don't know why Patrick bought an extra one, but I'm sure he has reason.

After installing the spacer, he began putting the old frames back into the original brood box.

Here, he has mixed the old with the new frames.

During this, the bees were most upset and flying all around. I was hiding beside the cedar tree, where they never fly. Betty was sitting alongside me. He doesn't care for the bees so much, and here showed his irritation.

Yet, one little honey bee flew next to me and watched Patrick do his business. I tried to get a picture, but I couldn't get the camera to focus before she turned, saw me, and flew away. Though it's not clear, it'll show you how close I was to her.

Once all the frames were in each box, it was time for Patrick to stack them on top of each other. Notice all the bees flying around.

Next he replaced the inner top, and prepared the outer top piece.

And finally we have a finished double brood hive, perfectly spaced and happy. Well, not quite happy yet. Notice how they are all clustered up at the opening. They are ready to defend, but shortly after leaving them, they settled down and have seemed quite happy since.

Take a bow Patrick; that was hard work.