But- oh, what happened! First this- and then this! (apologies to H.A. Rey and Curious George)

For some time, two legs of the high stand were tipping inwards.  I had tried to re-enforce them, but it seemed to be getting worse.

I had real concern that as the weight of the hives increased over the next few months as the bees stored honey that the stand might collapse.  This, of course, would not be a good thing.  I decided that I had to take the hives off the stand and do a proper repair.
First step: get the hives off the stand.  I took the table that had held Olea's hive and placed it in front.  The ground was uneven so I used rocks to try to level and stead the table.
Next step:  lift the hives off the stand and onto the table.  I had (cleverly) measured the table beforehand and knew that the hive had to hang over the side about a half-inch.  I smoked the bees, removed the super and top box, lifted the bottom board and box onto the table and then reassembled the hive.  This went pretty smoothly.

Then it was time to fix the stand.  I had envisioned the process and gone to the hardware store to pick up the angle irons.  Naturally I had not examined the structure first.

As you can see, there is no way this brace would go on the stand leg.  So I removed the old braces and straightened those that were bent.  I unscrewed the legs and chiseled off the old glue.  I then reassembled it , but put the legs on the outside instead so that I would not be putting the screws into the old holes.
When I tried to put the stand on the bricks, it did not fit.  I realized I had moved the legs further apart and so and to replace the bricks on which they rested. 

The bricks in their original position

I figured I should also reorient the stand a bit so I would have more room behind it.  I had to leave one brick where it was, so using it as a pivot point I moved the other three bricks angling the stand away from the fence.  I lowered and adjusted all the screens (that guard the oil cans) and placed the stand.

Now I had to put the hives back onto the stand.  But- oh....
I took the super off of #2 and noted that the table tilted a bit.  I looked at the legs and it looked like there was enough support. Then I took off the top box and...
The table tilted and #1 tilted and fell off onto its side.  Just what this whole process had meant to prevent!
Angry bees everywhere!  Good thing I had my veil on.  What to do?  I thought I should get the hive assembled on the stand as quickly as possible.  I hustled over, put the bottom board onto the frame and then the brood boxes and the super.  There were a lot of bees on the ground in the dry creek bed and on the table.  I looked and looked for the queen.  Was she still in the hive or not?  I looked and looked again and again.  I never did see her on the ground so I assume she stayed in the hive.
Now I wanted to make it easier for the bees to get back into the hive, so I placed some boards for ramps.

Note the clumps of bees in the dry creek bed

I still had not put #2 back together.  So I took care of that, looked again for the queen and rearranged the boards.

I took this picture from a distance without protection

When it was all done I went to take off the bee jacket.  There still 3-4 soldier bees attacking me even when I was back at the shed.  I swatted them.  I may have gotten one superficial sting on the inside of my left arm; pretty good protection, I'd say.
In retrospect, I should have handled things a bit differently.  (After the hive had fallen, that is.  Obviously I should have been more careful about the unstable table.)  My main concern was that the queen may have been ejected from the hive.  It probably would have been better to just let the boxes lie there for a while.  Any bees on the ground would crawl back in, the queen as well.  I will know better what to do the next time a hive falls over.

Entrance reducers out

Maidi and I went into the hives a couple of days ago.  We also removed the entrance reducers from all the hives.  It looks like the honey flow is starting.  There is lots of pollen being brought into the hives and the plum trees are in bloom.  The bees should be in the midst of the spring build up when they increase the colony size rapidly to 20,000 or so.
#1- The colony looks strong with a lot of bees in the super.  The super felt kind of heavy ,probably over five pounds which means they are also storing nectar which will be our fall honey harvest.  We saw the queen, fat and golden, in the top brood box.  There was capped brood in the top box; we did not check the bottom box.
#2- There were not many bees in the super and there was no nectar.  There was a good amount of brood in the top box.  We did not look at the bottom box.  #2 appears to be the weakest of the three hives but does not look unhealthy.  I will certainly check it again in a week or two.
#3- Some nectar in the super.  Lots of brood and eggs in both brood boxes.  We did not see the queen but know she's doing her job.  #3 is moderately strong.
Even though I have not been reporting, I have been doing winter chores.  I let the bees clean all the comb from Olea's, then froze and stored what I could.  I cleaned the observation window which was smeared on the inside from all those little bee feet.  I bought more deep frames and foundation so that I could make more splits. 
And I have been mulling over the best way to repopulate Olea's hive.  One choice is to put all the bees from the nuc in the hive.  This would be like a package.  However, I would not want to just discard the brood from the nuc and would then want to put it into one of the other hives.  This would involve a bit of frame juggling.  Also, the number of bees in the nuc might not be enough and I would have to add some from one of the other hives.  Another, simpler way is to do what I did before, namely make a shook swarm from one of the other hives.  That hive would then have to make a new queen.  I would also still have the nuc and when I make splits will then have 2-3 nucs.  Maybe I could sell one.

Spring is here?

What is going on?  Mid-winter and temperature in the 70's.
And what does this mean for the bees.  I know that they start a spring build-up, usually in late February.  However, what stimulates the build-up seems to be pollen and the girls have been bringing in a lot of pollen for a couple of weeks.  I decided today to add supers (how appropriate for super bowl Sunday). 
I had added a second brood box to #3 12 days ago, so I took a look to see if the bees were availing themselves of the added space.  They were.

Nectar and pollen

Brood with pollen and nectar

These are two adjacent frames from the top box.  Remember, these frames were empty drawn comb when they were put in the hive only 12 days ago!
I put the super on #2 without looking in.  I looked into the top box of #1 and there were two frames with an excellent brood pattern; I looked no further.
The hives all seem very healthy and are in the midst of the spring build-up.  It is a good thing I added the supers as they need the room and the added space helps in swarm control.  I considered putting in drone frames (for varroa control) but I could not decide which box to put them in and I was tired.

Experiment to save queen foiled

The colony in Olea's hive has been dying.  There are very few bees in there yet the queen has surprised me by surviving.  Today I decided that it was time to remove the comb so that I  could clean the hive and prepare it for the spring.
Once again I saw the queen with a solitary attendant.  There were at most 5 other bees in the hive eating honey.

I then took a close look at the cells on the frame.  There were eggs!  And they seemed to be in a good pattern, that is all cells in the area had an egg.  I tried to get a photo:

Those white smudges in the cells are eggs

Now what?  I thought Olea's had died because of queen failure, but maybe not.  These eggs were either dead or would soon be because there were no nurse bees to keep them warm and feed them.
But, I thought, maybe I could save the queen by putting her in a nuc with some brood from one of the other hives!
I closed up Olea's and got to work.  I fetched a nuc box from the shed.  I wanted to put in two frames of drawn comb, two frames of honey and one frame of capped brood with nurse bees on it.  I already had four frames of empty comb that had been frozen to kill any mites or wax moth eggs, so I selected two of these.  I then opened #2 and took two frames of honey from the top box.  I replaced these with two empty frames (that I had to run over to the shed to get).  I lifted off the heavy top box and looked into the bottom box.  I found a frame with capped brood, saw the queen on a different frame, misted the bees with my homemade honey-b-healthy and put it in the nuc.  Now to get the queen.
I figured I would mist her as well.  I had no idea if this would work at all.  I was essentially making a split in late fall.  The queen may have actually been failing or the nurse bees would not accept her or there were not enough workers or even something else.
I went back into Olea's and.... no queen!  I looked at each frame and the bottom of the box several times.  Where could she have gone?  Maybe crawled out and fell to the ground; I did not see her there but, of course, she would have crawled off somewhere.  Maybe a yellow jacket came and got her.  We will never know.
Now I had to put everything back into hive #2, which I did with some effort.
Lesson learned:  I brought a jar to the hive to put the queen in and then euthanize her.  I should have (shoulda, coulda, woulda) put her in the jar when I first saw her.  Then I could have later reported on the results of my experiment. 

Inspection on a cold day

On thanksgiving day I looked under the lid of #3 and saw no bees in neither the Vivaldi box nor on the visible frames.  This was the hive that had the pile of wax moth droppings in the tray.  I was concerned about its declining population so I knew I had to take a look.  
Yesterday afternoon the temperature reached 59, and even though I prefer it over 60, I felt the situation demanded an inspection,so with Seth's good help we took a look.

Photo from Maidi's iPhone

There were only a handful of bees in the top box, and after lifting it and its pounds of honey,
we searched for the brood. We tried taking the frames from one side of the hive but there was so much propolis that despite much prying we were unsuccessful.  I figure that in the cold the propolis is too hard.
We were able to get a frame loose on the other side with only minor damage to the box itself.
We looked at enough frames to find a hand-sized patch brood that looked pretty good.  It did have more empty cells than usual, but not too many.  
Since the population had decreased I wanted to decrease the hive to one box.  That way the bees would be able to keep warm and patrol for wax moths more easily.
We replaced 3 empty in the bottom box with 3 frames full of honey from the top box.
There were still a few frames of honey left so we cut one into comb honey.

 I will allow the bees to take some of the honey from the other frames then freeze them all (to kill any mites or wax moth eggs) and then use them in the hives next spring.

Giving back to the bees

 

Olea's hive is probably in trouble

Over the past couple of weeks I have noticed by looking through the observation window that the number of bees in Olea's hive seemed to be decreasing.  Today the apiary thermometer hit 62, so I was able to take a look.
There still is plenty of honey and pollen.  The brood pattern, however, did not look good.  Brood was present only in small areas on a few frames and it was spotty with lots of empty cells and scattered larvae.  I did spot the queen and saw a mite on one worker.
The most common cause of a poor brood pattern is a failing queen.  Disease such as chalkbrood or foul brood can also be a cause.  I did not see any sign of disease.
The remedy for a failing queen is to replace her but it is too late in the year for me to do so.  If the colony does not improve come spring, and they are still around, I will replace her then.  Or.... I could take the queen from my nuc and put her in the top bar hive.  I will have to think about that.

Rest assured, #2 is queenright

The thermometer hit 62 this afternoon, so I thought it would be ok to take a look into #2 in order to see if it was truly queenright.  A couple of weeks ago I had seen no larvae and no queen, but I was certain I had seen an egg, albeit only one.
The bees of both #1 & 2 were just finishing their orientation flights (as pictured above).  The top box was still pretty heavy, but I did not look into it.  In the bottom box I saw capped brood and larvae of various ages.  So even though I did not see the queen, I know she is in there doing her job.
I then took a look into the tray and it had many wax moth larvae in it.  After I cleaned out the disgusting creatures, I checked the two other trays and there were no wax moth larvae.  However, in #3 there was a pile of wax moth droppings piled up against one side like snow drifts.  So I took a quick look into just the top box and it was clear.  I figure the moths are in the bottom box and the bees know how to take care of them, I hope.