Sugar syrup disaster

I went down to give the bees  some more sugar syrup.  The feeder on Adele Hive is a green plastic masiemore feeder that I bought at the convention it was empty but for a layer of sugar crystals and sugar crystals all over the covers on the weirs.  I needed to remove it and clean it but it was getting dark and I decided to do it today.  The bees were not happy and there were lots of them still in the feeder and up inside the plastic cone things that make the weirs I ended up brushing and banging unceremonsiously and the bees were not impressed - I got stung twice.  eventually I got the bees of and the feeder in the kitchen with only one bee attached which I managed to rescue later.   So now I've cleaned it up I will wait for nightfall and because of the amount of brace comb they have been attaching to the underneath of the feeder I think that I will put it on the crown board this time.

Beatrice hive have cleaned up the super beautifully but now I have to persuade them out before they start to put honey in the frames.  The moment I started putting the porter bee escapes into the crown board they got really angry - I just put the hive back together and ran - scarey bees!!

Will wait till it's dark tonight before I go down there again!

Autumn jobs

We have just finished treating the bees with Apiguard and we have started feeding.  They have already had one gallon of sugar syrup in the last four days. 

I extracted the honey on Friday afternoon we have about 40 lbs so really good.  Tonight I put the wax and one of the wet supers (honeycomb from which the honey has been extracted) back on the so they can clean it up before I give them some more syrup.  Connie hive is on her second gallon and Adele will get a second gallon tomorrow. 

I have to say that I am loving our new Maisemore feeders - you really don't have to bother the bees at all to add more syrup. 

Next job is to do a varroa count.