Day 10

I replaced both feeders yesterday - 3rd time in 10 days and both were bone dry. Every sign I can see suggests they are doing well. There is a lot of activity, whatever they are doing, and clearly they are eating a lot. They are continuing to forage; I see some with full loads of pollen on their legs. There should be a lot of activity starting Friday when the weather warms up and dries out.

The bees are starting with a number of bars of wax from the old hive, which is a major leg up. I think I read that the effort to make a pound of wax is the same as that for 8 pounds of honey.  They have been cleaning and repairing the old wax and there are no dead bees on the bottom screen any more.

When I opened the feeder area on the porch, a few bees came out. I removed the screen and most went out and into the hive. Later, I saw that one managed to get into the kitchen. She was attracted to the overhead fluorescent light, just as I had read - they must be part moth. This morning, she was there again and I decided to remove her. The ceiling is 9 1/2 ft, so I put a dab of honey on the end of a pole and touched her with it. Her butt stuck to the honey. I carried her out to the porch and she had already sorted herself out and was eating the honey. I removed the screen (the weather is cold and damp so no one else was out) and put her on the window sill with the honey. Problem solved.

On a separate note, I was thinking about small hive beetles. I've read that their life cycle requires returning to the ground for a period. If you can interrupt that, it should either get rid of them or reduce the numbers. Since the porch hive is 12 ft off the ground, seems like that should do the trick. It makes me wonder whether hives on the roof of a building, like Weaver's Way in Chestnut Hill, have a SHB problem. Have to follow up on that. 

I've tried to take some photos, but it doesn't work very well through the windows. There's something on the inside that's cloudy. The window picks up reflections so using a flash doesn't help.