Mid June 2015 status of Bend hives

A couple of things are happening...bees are thriving in both hives, new bees doing orientation flights, drones appearing, and workers foraging and returning with pollen and nectar--just as it should be!

Top Bar Hive: Lowered the bottom board of the top bar hive for ventilation several days ago because of the warm weather and left it lowered. Noticed that bees were staying on the board and not going into the hive; looked again this morning and see that they are building piles of propolis--I'm guessing in an effort to seal the bottom. So, I will clean the board and replace it securely so there is no opening at the bottom and will leave it in place until really hot weather when bees are settling on the outside during the nights.

Bottom board with propolis piles

I see a few mites--not enough to treat at this time.

Also, the bees have greatly reduced their 1:1 syrup intake and I shall stop providing it in a few days I expect. The comb building had reached the 14th bar last week so I added more bars, for a total of 22 now. That should be adequate; however, I will check the hive in a few days to be certain.

Bar 14 comb

Warre Hive: The bees are not moving out of the top box. I have asked for input from local Warre hive owners and was offered an online site to check for information. Although I was unable to login because I'm not a member of Yahoo, I did find another site with useful information about "false bottoms" in Warre hives.  It seems one should 'seed' the next lower box with a comb from the top box. I will do this soon. Otherwise, it will be as the Independence hive--a pollinating and swarming hive, which is fine, too. The bees in that hive never moved down during the three years they colonized the hybrid hive; now I'm thinking it probably wasn't the box--it was just their nature. Wish I had done more research on this earlier. If this 'seeding' works, perhaps I'll put the hybrid hive back in use?!

This is the conversation I found: http://www.beesource.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-270466.html.

underside view of top box; bees not building comb in lower box

These hives, built by Ken in Independence of Western Red Cedar, are garden works of art--they have not warped and look lovely in the yard here in Bend. I added blue vinyl roof covers for a bit of matching color.

All is well.