3rd Inspection

Well it's been bothering me about the top super going on top of the bees too soon, so I asked on the forum if I did put it on too soon. Turns out I should have waited a bit longer for 8 frames to be filled out completely. So last Friday, on May 23rd, I quickly went in and took the top super off. There was only 5 bees up in the super and no sign of comb being built.
Then I decided to take all the frames out, that was containing all the comb & bees, and transfer them to a new deep box. The deep they were currently in was really old and it smelled like something was rotting! It wasn't really a deep, it was 2 small boxes stapled together, and there were gaps all over the box. So I took all the frames out, one by one, and put them in another deep I had next to me. Then I moved the old deep and bottom board. Put the new bottom board and deep in place, and moved all of the frames back, the same way they were. Then I decided to move the 2 end frames that were empty and switch them with the partially filled frames next to the empty ones. This speeds up the comb building process. You shouldn't move the frames around in the center, where the brood nest is, or flip the frames for it disturbs the bee space and stresses the bees.
I'm planning on going back into the hive in 10 days, and hopefully there will be at least 8 frames with comb so I can put the super on top of them. The bottom board was the reason for the rotting smell, it was moist and smelled like old, gross cheese. I think it was wet, because of the plastic I put on top on the inner cover to help the bees keep warm with the super on. The inner cover in now open.There was some debris on the bottom board, but I do not know why it smelled so gross. At least it's now out the the hive!
I completed the OB hive in the fish tank. I glued 3/4"(?) thick pieces of wood one the ends with silicone and let it dry overnight. The hive will fit 5 deep frames. The only probably is that there is a lot of room on the bottom of the frames, about 5 inches from the bottom on the frame to the floor of the hive. I think I'm just going to leave the bees alone, and let them do what they want. I'm only planning on going in the hive only when necessary, perhaps 2 times a year, so I don't think the burr comb would be a problem, unless it goes all over the glass! =0
I want to have a permeable 'inner cover', by putting a plastic grain bag on top. Like this, but closed... http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff61/frenchhill/nucbox2.jpg. Then on top of that I'm going to put a piece of plywood with holes in it. This way I can control how much ventilation they have, and I can feed them. I'm going to put mesh on the bottom of most holes. Why not on all of them? Because I want to try the Bell Jar hive. I spoke about this in another post, but here's a link to explain what it is, http://turlough.blogspot.com/2007/09/bell-jar-bees-complete-task.html. I'm thinking that If I put these on, the bees will fill it with honey and I could probably gather a little bit of honey from the OB hive bees! But I'm going to save most of the honey to feed back to them in the winter so they don't starve. Also, with several of these on top, I could probably keep the bees occupied enough to not think about swarming. Not too likely though. I'm still trying to find a good spot to put the hive, but am thinking about putting it at a south facing entrance that is about 10 feet off the ground. Bees usually live high off the ground in the wild, so this is a plus for happier bees... I think =).
Alright, I'm going to go out and watch the bees. It's a gorgeous day out! Oh and on Friday, one of the bees nailed me right under my eye! It was my fault, because I was chasing after my 'runaway' puppy, and ran right towards the hive. The bees probably thought I was going to attack their home, so they started buzzing at me and one flew right in my eye. I freaked out(forgetting about what to not do when a bee is buzzing close to you), and tried to brush it off without getting stung, and I got stung. Then I had to run in the house to look in the mirror to scrape off the poison sac, and the sac was left in my eye so long, that my eye swelled nearly shut for 2 days! The sting didn't hurt, but the swelling was annoying. So don't run towards your hive! =)
Have a great day!
Kris