A Little Help from One Hive to Another

July 4, 2014
I opened up both hives, to assess their status, and make sure Rose wasn't expanding any faster and requiring anymore supers. I also wanted to check on the activity level of Lavender to assess how much they were working in the hive body and moving out of the lower super.

Rose was doing very well, and seemed to have just started working in the 1st super just a bit. They have done a very nice job of filling the frames in the hive bodies, but just to make sure they would completely fill the outermost frames, I flipped them. If you imagine all 10 frames numbered from 1 to 10, I pulled out 1 and 10 and flipped them so the outside faces of each frame are now turned in.

Lavender still seems to have very low numbers, and as I look back at the dates here in my records, I know it will still take some time to build up the brood (and for the brood to hatch). So in an effort to give them a boost, I traded a frame from Lavender with a frame from Rose. I looked through all the frames in the upper hive body of Rose, and chose what appeared to have the largest amount of capped brood, though still only about 50% of the cells were capped. I knocked off all but half a dozen bees or so, and placed it into the middle of Lavender. Then I took an empty, foundation frame from the outside of Lavender, and placed it on the outside of Rose. I did this at the recommendation of my Dad, and he has assured me Rose will barely notice. I hope I also helped Lavender instead of creating more work for them.

July 7, 2014
I checked on the syrup level in Lavender when it was almost dark in the evening, and their jar was nearly empty. I took them a new jar, and now I'm working on a new batch of syrup, since I'm just about out (and the syrup I have been using has gotten a bit too old). It was made in early May, so it has lasted a while in my refrigerator.

As a side note, when starting a new hive, and through the early spring if you're feeding a weak hive that's wintered over, you feed them a syrup that is a 1:1 ratio of sugar to water. The recipe that I got from my Dad is as follows:

Bring 20 cups of water to a full rolling boil in a large covered pot. Turn off the heat and add a 10 lb bag of sugar. Stir the whole pot until all the sugar has dissolved. Then add 1/8 tsp of sea salt. When the liquid has cooled, my Dad then adds maybe about a tsp of lemon juice.

I split this recipe in half, and also leave out the extra steps of sea salt and lemon juice. He said they aren't crucial, but he likes to add them for various reasons. And now that I've reminded myself of the recipe, I'm off to heat some water and make another batch.

Edit:
I forgot to mention, this syrup recipe makes approximately 2 gallons (I think just a bit less than 2) and requires a VERY large pot. I don't have a pot large enough in my kitchen, so that's why I split the recipe in half. Also, if you only have one or two hives, and you won't use up the syrup relatively soon (within a few days, or maybe if you push it, a week at most) refrigerate the syrup in jugs (recycled milk or water jugs) to store it for longer. My husband makes a lot of homebrew, and enjoys an occasional growler from various local breweries, so I borrow his empty, clean growlers to store syrup.