Oakhurst Garden Bees & Birds

The Oakhurst Garden's bees are finally in the coop.  I think this should greatly help with the SHB issues and it makes me feel good to experiment with this method of permaculture.

Same bee yard different things happening

The CSX split has one deep fully drawn and full of mostly brood. Yesterday when I opened them there was about 30 small hive beetles on the inner cover.  They are doing a good job of keeping them corralled on the inner cover, but to help them out I put in 4 AJ's Beetle eaters.  To get them ready for winter they are going to need more stores, so I filled the feeder with 2.5 quarts of syrup.  Today when I checked on them they hadn't hardly touched the feeder so I put on a medium with fully drawn out frames.  I think they are out of room, but it also gives the SHB a better chance to take hold.  I will keep a close eye.

Package number one is doing fine, but needs to be fed as well.  They have taken about half of the feeder.

Package number two had the most stores and bees.  It was pretty testy, but I did see plenty of eggs, so I believe it queen rite and just had more guard bees.  The feeder was empty on this hive.

The Demeter combined split is doing fine and for now has plenty of stores.

Demter is full of brood and has enough stores for now.

All the other hives were SHB free.  Next week, I will be doing mite checks to see which hives will need to be treated.

Small hive beetle control

My hive at the DHS has to be monitored for small hive beetles since it's right next to the compost pile.  Several years ago I took Don's, A.K.A. the fat beeman, organic course.  Here is his video on beetle control.  It is cheap and easy compared to the beetle eaters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_KDPp8H6PU