April 4, 2017 - Moving Day

[greenwapiti]

rubibees and I moved the 5 frames from the nuc to the main hive today and inspected the colony during the transfer. We got the smoker going, I suited up, and she got in a veil, long-sleeved clothes, and some leather gloves. This was our first time doing anything significant on our own, as we'd really just observed the bees before this!

I opened up the nuc and started getting frames out. The hive was quiet and calm for that, but got louder when we used a little smoke on it. I'll keep an eye on whether the smoke is really very useful, as if the bees are just more riled up, the benefits of using it to move them out of the way a bit might not be worth it. I can already move slowly and gently.

We each took a look at the frames during the transfer, but kept them mostly vertical as they are foundationless and some of the new comb wasn't too well attached yet. There was a bit of cross-combing to cut, and I cut a bit of the developing comb off of the edge of one frame to try and discourage that.

Moving the frames over


Checking a frame with some cross-combing


rubibees puts a frame in the new hive