Submitted by Alex Reid

There is not much to say about my hive in this report. Scott, my mentor checked the hive and lifted our combined hive to see what the bees were up to. There was plenty of honey but the bees were dead. There weren't many bees in the hive. I think the bees died because there was such a small population. That resulted in them not being able to stay together, keep warm, and get honey. This caused them to starve or freeze to death. I might split a hive with Scott in the spring, or we will try to catch a swarm. This is my latest update for March 2014. Bee HapBee, Don't Worry!!

Submitted by Alex in Q1

This is my bee report in December. My hive is doing fine. My hive was combined in the fall with my mentors because my hive would've died if I didn't combine them. The hive tried to requeen itself late in the year but the new queen did not survive.  The combined hive is looking wonderful. It has a good amount of honey and was busy inside.  We did feed the hive in the fall to make sure they did not starve.  We put an entrance reducer on and also put some wind blocks up.

      We also put Styrofoam on the inside of the hive cover to help keep them warm and reduce condensation.  Currently my goal is for the combined hive to make it through the winter so I will be able to split it come spring and get honey next year.

     Wishing everyone a "HapBee" Holidays and New Year.

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Alex Reid

No pictures submitted.

Submitted by Alex in Q4

       This is my second quarterly update on my beehive for the Brent Bridwell Project. I’ve inspected my hive twice this time. The first inspection went well. There were plenty of eggs but there was one important thing……. there were several queen cells so this means that the queen was going to be replaced. 5 weeks later we inspected the hive to make sure the new queen was laying eggs. We were disappointed to find there were no eggs, larvae, or capped brood. This means that there was no queen in the hive. This is a problem that my mentor, Scott Oliver and I, Alex Reid need to fix immediately. My mentor told me that we could put a frame with eggs from his hive and put it in my hive. This would allow the bees to turn one of the eggs into a queen egg. He also said that it would take along time for the queen to hatch, mate, and come back to lay the eggs. So this is our last choice.

     My Mentor then came up with a very good ideal. He said that I could combine my hive with his hive. So we went out to the hive and put my boxes on the bottom with newspaper on top so they could get to know each other. Then we put his hive boxes on top and my mentor said that that should hopefully work. We combined my hive with one of the swarm hives we caught this summer. Next Spring we will plan to split the hives out so I will once again have my own hive.

     I still have NOT gotten stung!! Thanks for this opportunity to learn much about beekeeping.

Submitted by Alex in Q3

    This is info on my journey to being a Beekeeper. Scott Oliver, my Mentor, is a Beekeeper in Corydon, IN. He  showed me stuff about bees and I got interested in them,  so I wanted to be a Beekeeper also. Scott submitted my name to the Brent Bridwell Project. Luckily I was chosen and I recently got my first hive kit. I was excited to get it and started building it.
    The hive wasn’t that difficult to build, but it did take me some time.  After I was finished, Mike Seib delivered an Indiana Queen Nuc to me. It was a very strong nuc. I started putting the frames with all the bees into my built hive. Once that was finished the next day Scott and I put a feeder on my hive.
    The day after, Scott and I were checking out the hives when we saw a swarm go to a tree branch. Scott said that we needed to capture it, so we got a nuc box ready and cut the branch. Then we shook the branch with the swarm into the box.
    Today we checked on my hive for the first time. We inspected it to make sure it was “Queen Right”. We did this by seeing if there were eggs. That they were drawing comb too.  I learned how to use a smoker to calm the bees.  During the inspection I did NOT get stung!:) Scott did however.  This is my first update on my Beehive.