A Tale of Two Colonies

An inspection of our strongest honeybee colony and our weakest colony, both of which happen to reside in the same hive. Bonus material: how to remove a stinger and cameo appearances by Sadie the Yellow Lab.

Since we are new to keeping bees, these inspections are as much educational for us as they are practical for gauging the health of the bees. While this might be a little long, we hope that those interested in keeping bees will find it informative. To those with experience keeping bees, we welcome input on anything we may have missed or might evaluate in a better way.

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Some post - inspection comments:

(spoilers below):

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Although Monty points out the lack of brood on the end frames, that's not really a problem. In horizontal hives, such as Layens, the bees will generally use a certain amount of space for brood and beyond that will fill the frames with honey. That's expected and desired.

Our immediate course of action for the hive beetles will be to remove the empty frame from the smaller hive, consolidating the bees into a smaller space. With less space to patrol, the bees should be more effective in removing the beetles. This first step, along with clearing out what beetles can be removed manually, will be done within a day or two. No beetle larvae or "slimed" honey was found, so far, so this seems early enough to put the beetles in check.

[musket]

Just found and subscribed to your channel. You and I think alike. Last winter I built two big Lazutin type hives that would take double stacked Langstroth frames. I did this because I liked the whole idea of the Layens / Lazutin hives but already have Langstroth hives and parts. After watching you I will switch to Layens type. I will probably convert the two I built to layens, like you did.

[longarmsupplies]

Isn't it amazing how challenging one teeny little lady can be? Bump, bump, get away!

[naturallive]

Nice hive you have. If you put some drops of linseed oil on your hands and arms the bees wil not sting you. They just walk over your hands. Kind regards Jacques from the Netherlands

[benschmitt]

Just found your channel. Good stuff so far. Just started keeping bees myself this year and in Layens hives. I'm also in Missouri. We should swap notes sometime.