Yesterday and today I cut plywood boards and 2×4′s to make beehive tops and bottom boards but I have not put them together yet. I also got materials together to make inner covers.
Today I went through many of the beehives in my back yard. I removed frame feeders and replaced them with frames of foundation. I also added a super of empty frames of foundation to a one-story hive and moved two frames of brood up into the top super, replacing them in the bottom box with frames of foundation so the bees below can make space for the queen to lay in and she can also move up and down between the two boxes. I put a frame of foundation between two fully drawn frames of brood so they can draw the wax out and build a straight brood comb. I think this will help the colony grow faster. They look like they are doing very well.
Other hives seem to not be doing as well. I took a frame of open brood from one hive and placed it into another hive that had no brood so the bees can raise a new queen if they don’t have one. After looking through almost all of the hives, it was a little discouraging because so many of the hives were not doing as well as I had thought they were doing (in my imagination) before I looked at them. It’s not always easy to get the bees to be successful. I do the things that I think will help them be successful, but they then have to do their part too in order for my work to help them. It is a cooperative venture between me and the bees.
I didn’t see any mites, but I did see some hive beetles. I killed the ones that I saw. I only got stung once. The bees in one of the hives were particularly unhappy that I was bothering their hive, but I was well-protected, so did not have much trouble outside of getting hot and sweaty.