Ready to mow around the electric fence

Today's the day that I plan to mow around the electric fence and inside the fenced area around the beehive.  They won't like it, I'm sure, so I will wear long pants and my hat and veil...and gloves.  I mowed before the bees came in early May so it's been close to 6 weeks since it was mowed.  You can imagine it's getting long.

I've mowed around the outside of the fence a couple of times, but today I will remove each side, and put it off to the side, mow it, then put it all back in place and hook it back up to the battery.

While I'm in there and all veiled up, I will open the top to see how the sugar water is faring.  I just made more this morning so I'll add more if needed.  Otherwise I'll wait until Sunday when I will do my thorough inspection and add the sugar water then.

Last weekend, we had another bee class with the folks from Imaginethathoney in Swanzy, NH. They showed us how to sort of "jump start" a new deep hive box, if the bees haven't really started building out the frames in the new box.  Mine hadn't last week...plus, if you remember, I didn't really see eggs last week which had me concerned. She showed us how you can take a few frames from another box (in my case, my first box) and add to the new box in the middle.  That will help the bees find their way to the new box and begin building it.  I will try this technique if I need to when I do my inspection this weekend.

Plis, I saw three peanut like appendages up at the top of a frame which means the bees are in the process of making a new queen.  I asked Jodie at Imagine that honey what they were and that was her answer.  I asked what to do with them and she told me to leave them alone and they'll make a new queen because mine is probably not performing well enough...or it's possible I killed it by mistake. Out of the three appendages, only one will survive.  The strong queen will kill the others. IT'S A JUNGLE OUT THERE!!

So I'm anxious to take a look this week.

The other thing on my list this week is to begin giving the bees a "sugar and grease" pattie which controls tracheal mites holistically.  As the bees feed on the patties, they are coated with grease which makes the mites slip off the bees and they can't reproduce.  I read this in the Beekeeping for Dummies book and I prefer a holistic approach so am going to put in one of the patties I made.  The recipe is:

1 1/2 lbs of solid vegetable shortening like Crisco
4 pounds of granulated sugar
1/2 pound honey (not store bought but a natural, local honey)
Optional (1/3 cup mineral salt) - I didn't use this

Mix all together until smooth and well mixed and form into hamburger-like patties.  They then be frozen and you take one out each time you need.  One patty will last the bees 2-3 months.