#general notes

First picture is the RiverVale hive, second is RiverDale.

This weekend I am going to be out of town so I wont be able to do my inspection when I usually do. I am afraid of the worst case where I leave and my roomate has to deal with the hives like swarming or something and scaring our neighbors. Based on what I saw this past weekend I think the RiverDale Hive might be solid for a tiny bit more space, and the RiverVale Hive I think will benefit from the wax foundations instead of the plastic foundations that was in their second box. These new boxes are each eight frames of wax foundation and two frames of plastic foundation. So I bottom supered the RD hive, leaving their medium at the top since they already have some nectar stored up there. I just traded out the medium for a deep on the RV hive since they didnt have anything really built yet in their medium.

I have been so excited to put these boxes on! I bought a ton of Archie comics and mod podged the images on and topped it with a clear coat to protect them from the weather (at least for a little while).

Notice how the weeds have already grown straight through my gravel...

Some close ups from before I took them outside.

If it takes me a while, or I seem to miss something you said. It’s probably because I panicked and am hiding or am terrified of not being good enough.

Okay these first two pictures are the underneath (both hives have screened bottom boards rn) and directly in front of the RiverVale hive. It has been raining a ton so I havent gotten to get in there yet 🙃

This weekend I was out of town and I was told to give the bees (specifically the RiverVale Hive) about a week before bothering them again so that Veronica can settle in and start laying. We left for our trip on Thursday so before that I did just open the top to make sure she had been released from the queen cage. I also smashed a hive beetle that was crawling around the top. I did not check for eggs because it was later in the day and they were kinda angry with me (I also just killed their previous queen less than a week before so I wouldn't blame them for not trusting me for a while).

Yesterday when I got home from work around 8pm I just went out to see if they were bringing in pollen. Neither colony seemed to be. The RV hive once again has a lot more dead bees out front than the RD hive. I wish I had taken a picture... everyone keeps telling me not to mind the dead bees because that's super normal but I cant help but note the difference between the two hives. I am hoping the new genetics are a bit more hygienic and maybe they are just cleaning house from Cheryl's mess.

Today I had to kill Cheryl... the guy I got my bees from is bringing me a new queen and several frames of bees tomorrow to hopefully save this colony. He suggested I go ahead and take her out today so they are more willing to accept a new queen.

I pulled out the scariest looking frame and after I brushed as many bees off as I could (they hated that) I took some pictures

I also tried to do the rope test for AFB. Based on the pictures and videos I've seen, I dont think this is ropey enough for AFB. Of course I dont have a good frame of reference. I think it's probably EFB, but it doesnt smell at all which is supposed to be a pretty common symptom 🤷‍♀️

I'm putting the video of my test under the cut because it's a bit yucky if you don't want to watch. I'm also including a picture of poor dead Cheryl...

If you have somehow dived this deep and found me, congratulations!

I like to draw and talk about whatever interests me, which is a very, very long list. I have quite a few OCs I love to talk about, so you’ll probably hear about them a lot. (who knows, maybe the next post down is about them!)

All of my talking is under the tag #starry speaks

All of my art is under the tag #starry’s art

All of my writing is under #starry’s writing

I watched her do this for a kind of a long time..