Olea- come and get your hive!

Nothing personal, Olea, but your hive is causing me tsoris.  Although the philosophy behind top bar hives is compelling, the actual management is far from easy.
Top bars are supposedly more natural because the bees build comb without a frame or foundation.  Old wax is not reused, which is better for the bees.  They do not require any lifting of boxes heavy with honey and stay at a workable level.  Many of them have windows allowing for observation without opening the hive.  They are less expensive and are easy to build.  Yes, this is, and more, is all true.  However....
Inspecting the hive is exponentially more work than inspecting a Langstroth.  Each comb must have any attachments to the wall cut free.  Some of the cells thereby cut are filled with honey.  Soon there is honey all over the hive tool and my hands.  And of course, the tool and my hands become covered with bees.  Despite best efforts, a bee or two or three will get pinched and reflexively sting me unless I wear my clumsy leather gloves.  (Two stings today, both on my right ring finger.)  Bees get caught in the honey and die.  It is difficult to treat for varroa. (At least with what I already have; oxalic acid is supposed to work.)  Bees get squished while freeing the comb.  Bees get squished when replacing the bars.  And I have yet to harvest any honey from this hive.
Olea's hive has 22 bars.  I inspected it today.  I want to see the brood area, which is on bars ~3-12.  However, I have to start at 22 and move down one bar at a time.  That's at least 10 bars that need to be moved just to get started with the inspection.  And each bar has to be freed and moved down.  The bees are getting more and more agitated because of all the freed honey.
Today I only got to bar 10 and never saw the center of the brood area.  I did find a large number of drones and drone brood on frame 14.  There was worker brood with a good pattern on frame 10, and when I saw that, I decided I had had enough for the day.
So, Olea, whenever you want to take your hive back, let me know.

#2 inspection and alcohol wash mite count

Despite the heat, I went into #2 today.  This is the hive I under-supered 10 days ago.  And the one with the k winged bee.
Naturally, the top super was heavy and full of honey.  I only checked the outer 2-3 frames of the second super.  There was drawn comb and some honey, so the supply is still building.
In the top brood box, I spotted the queen.  There was a good brood pattern, too.  There was still a frame with drone brood.  Once again, I only looked at 5-6 frames. 
I did an alcohol wash mite count with the results in the picture below.

As you can see there is a dismaying number of mites- 26 to be precise.  This is way too many for entering the winter.  This is a good article explaining why.  So I need to treat and the question is when.  Most sources say to treat after the fall honey harvest and others say that here in mid-coast California, we should treat before mid-August.  I plan on treating now, tomorrow actually.  Each Langstroth will get 2 MAQs.  I will not treat Olea's.  One reason is that it is just too difficult.  (Probably the way to treat top bar hives is with oxalic acid dribble or vaporization.  I do intend to decide which method to employ and to get the supplies.)  The other rationalization is that it survived last winter, so by definition is a survivor colony.  By the way, Olea's population was diminished by swarming but now appears to have recovered with bees on all the combs.  Perhaps I will get some honey from it this year.
As a matter of housekeeping, let me know if you wish to continue getting this blog by email.

Second supers and k wing and more

Two weeks ago I went into #3.  I was pleased at how gentle my bees are.  I had looked into another beekeepers hive a day or two earlier and now I know what a hot hive is.  His bees were pinging us immediately upon opening, and Terry, who had on cloth gloves got stung several times. When we were done, the bees still came at us even when we were nowhere near the hive and I got stung on the cheek.
#3 looked very healthy.  The super had honey and a small patch of brood.  There was a lot of brood in the brood boxes as well as many empty queen cups.
Today I looked into #2.  The super was heavy and there was uncapped honey in the side-most frame.  I saw brood and eggs in the top brood box.  I also saw one bee with k wing deformity in the hive.

K wing deformity.  Not my picture

This can be a sign of tracheal mites. The best I can tell from my sources is that there is no need to treat now.  If I see a lot of crawlers with k wing, then I will.  Fortunately, formic acid is a good way to treat and, as you all know, that is what I use to treat varroa with MAQs.  It is likely that I will be treating in the fall.
I put supers on all three hives.  For curiosity (and because I had already removed the super in order to get to the brood box) I put the new super below the old one- bottom-supering.  The super on #1 had mostly drawn frames with some old honey and pollen in some while the super in #3 has all new frames.
I successfully moved the water source to my desired location by moving it 1-2 feet at a time and the bees are still going to it.

They like it!

Although one can not see them all, there are 10 bees on the rags and 3 or 4 flying around.
I have managed to move the station about 3 feet closer to its final destination.

Water source for my bees

Bees need a regular source of water, just like all other living things.  There are many ways of providing water for them and there are many studies regarding what they like to drink. 
Ever since I have had my bees, I have tried to provide a source of water.
Initially I placed a  small basin in front of their hive, which they never used.  Then I was told that they like their drinking fountain to be out of sight of the hive and in sun.  So I made a basin that was placed behind the new rose garden, hidden by plants from the hive and about 20 feet away.  Initially it had rocks in it, then sand, then peat moss, then a combination of sand, rocks, peat moss and cotton rope.  I had to cover the basin with chicken wire to keep out the raccoons.  Then I tried filling the basin with salty water.  And still, the bees were getting their water elsewhere.
A couple of weeks ago, I draped a towel in an old plastic wastebasket filled with water instead of the basin.  The towel kept moist by osmosis, giving them a safe and easy way to collect the water, but no bees.
Then... a couple of days ago I had watered some areas of the lawn (part of a large project to improve the croquet court)  and bees were there collecting water.  Brainstorm!  I moved the water source onto the lawn and added a blue rag to the red one that was already there.  I figured that even though the bees find the water mainly by smell I would make it more attractive by using a blue cloth as well since they see blue and not red.  Then I moved the wastebasket to the side of the lawn, out of the way. 
And IT WORKED!

My high-tech watering station

Two customers

I plan on giving them a few days to become habituated, then move it a couple of feet a day until I get it back behind the new rose garden.

Orientation flights- warning: do not watch if lots of bees makes you squeamish

Hives continue to build up

Olea's seems to have recovered from the MAQs with bees on all the combs once again.  I have to assume that some of the brood died while the nurse bees were keeping away, but details will have to wait until an inspection is done, and none is planned soon.
 #1- There is some comb drawn in the top box and a good brood pattern in the bottom box.  The queen was not seen.  Alcohol wash- 1 mite.
#2- some drawn comb in the top box.
#3- top box not inspected, but probably has some drawn comb as there were a lot of bees on the central frames.  I had prepared to make a split so I went through each frame of the bottom box.  There box was full of bees and there were a few frames with a good brood pattern and three frames with drone brood, two of which are foundationless frames.  I saw neither the queen nor any eggs so I did not make a split.
The feral nuc has a small amount of drone brood and some freshly drawn comb.  The colony is dying and will soon be gone.  I will then use the new comb in a future split.
There have been some mildly aggressive bees in the past few days.  I am trying to determine from which colony they are coming.  If I can figure that out I may re-queen it.