Hive inspections - 8-11-13

Well, I was able to get into the hives yesterday to check on their SHB status and honey stock as I haven't had a chance in about a week (I did a quick inspection 5 days ago) to swap out traps.  Here's what I found ..

H-1

Changed 2 traps and some brood but not much - also really light on capped honey.  There was some uncapped supplies.  A little low on bees, but they are keeping the SHB in check for now.

H-2 (Nuc Bomb)

It's still got 2 deeps on it and I swapped out 3 traps in it.  I noticed a drawn-out queen cell which looks almost ready to 'pop' in the top super.  It was located on about the 4th or 5th frame and was a hive-drawn frame which was about 70% drawn out.  I left it alone because the hive didn't have allot of bees in it and I hope they don't swarm.  I think the bees have created this because there is a problem with the existing queen - and she'll soon be superceeded by a new one.  There was only 2 or 3 frames of brood, and the frames were only spotty in brood - so we'll see.  Not much capped honey, but some uncapped.  Some bees might have drifted back to H-3 whenever I moved it last week - but their count seems good, and they are acclimating well to their new location.

H-3

Allot of SHB still - and swapped out 4 traps.  This hive has 2 deep hive boxes on it also had more brood and honey in the top - but not much in the bottom.  I decided to swap the boxes around.  In  moving them around, I noticed about 100 or so SHB trapped on the bottom of the screened board.  I spent about 15 minutes trying to kill all of them, in addition to all of the others that were on this hive.  No SHB larva found - just a over abundance of SHB.  Bee count is enough that they are keeping the SHB at bay - but I still thing there's a problem if I loose too many bees - I might end up loosing this hive.  Here's what the traps are looking like.  I'm removing 3 to 4 traps every 3 to 4 days from the hives and they consistently look like this...when's it going to end ???

H - 4

Still a single hive and a couple of frames of brood.  Light on capped honey, but some and some uncapped stores.  Swapped 2 traps.

Nuc Box -

Swapped 2 traps, and capped honey was in the bottom box.  Not much of anything in the top, and no brood up there.

So - even though I'd hoped I'd started to see some "light" by the reduction of traps - I don't know that I've made much headway.

Definitely - time to feed again though.  I refilled the quart jar on the Nuc box and H-1 - and also put out 5 gallons of sugar water for everybody..with the HBH in it.  I expect they will "drink" this all down by Wednesday or Thursday.  I'll keep refilling for a few weeks and see how they are doing.