The weather was lovely today–low humidity, sunny, not terribly hot–a mere 81°F with a nice breeze–so I took advantage of it to do hive inspections when the conditions were good for me and for the girls. They were pretty cooperative today though just a bit tetchy when I first opened the hive but that’s not unexpected at this time of the year when nectar is a bit scarce.

The girls in both hives seem to really like applying propolis to anything that doesn’t move–especially between the inner cover and the top of the frames. Prying the tops of the frames away from the inner cover was when the bees in the upper box got just a bit irked with me and switched from humming to buzzing–including a few that got in my face about it–that’s why we wear bee jackets or at least veils. Once I had the inner cover off the hive the bees did settle down and let me do my thing.

Both colonies are looking good–a reasonable population of bees, good brood pattern, honey and pollen storage although there were enough varroa mites present on the sugar shake that I started treatment today on both colonies with ApiVar (Amitraz) strips since we still have some hot weather coming. That’s part of getting ready over-wintering.

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