Chop Wood Carry Water Plant Seeds is a blog about Self-Sufficient Homesteading. How can we live by creating a sustainable bio-diverse world, instead of by consuming and destroying the only one we have? What kind of teaching have you got if you exclude nature?

Friday, June 8, 2012

Follower Boards Totally Removed

I went to the hive today together with Juliana who wished for me to tell her more about bees. So we sat infront of the hive entrance and observed the zooming bees. She was the first to notice Drones saying: "Look at those big ones". Yes, lots of Drone activity and New Bees hovering infront of the hive performing the "orientation flight".

We opened the window and observed the bees building combs and doing other tasks within the hive.

Then we noticed one Wasp went under the hive roof and stayed there. I felt this to be a sign of a wasp nest so i decided to lift the roof and check.

I tried to lift the roof but it seemed stuck. Wood can expand indeed but not this much. So i pulled it up with a bit of force still monitoring not to pull the top bars with it.
The end board above the entrance was pushed out by the top bars.
The Top Bars expanded so much I was shocked!!! I already removed one top bar during the rainy season and replaced it with a thiner piece. Today i had to make it smaller for 1cm more. In total almost a whole 34mm top bar desapeared due to wood expansion (deffenetly 2 cm)
BTW, there was a small wasp nest which i destroyed.

When i opened the hive Iv noticed one of the follower boards being totally deformed, so i decided to remove it totally, both of them. Im liking those followers less and am thinking to remove them from my other (empty) hive as well.

Im also thinking to remove the mesh floor now that follower boards arent there and permanently close the floor. Let the bees seal any cracks in the gaps between the walls and the floor with propolis.

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