One of the most active members of our local Tidewater Beekeepers Association, Floyd Watkins has been in the hospital and under the weather for a few weeks. A group of TBA members gathered on Saturday to help out with his hives to inspect, help gather the honey supers for him, and check on his bees.
Here is dumpling in his element - with weed wacker in hand. 
Got the smoker going with some dried leaves and sticks.
Quite a few members were out showing their support. The TBA president Frank Walker was leading the learning segments and described what was going on in each of the the hives as we went through them.
This is what you will find if you are missing frames in your hive. They will just keep making comb and in all sorts of artsy forms. Not ideal for tending a hive, so we scraped off the wax, put some more frames in the open section and set the wax on top of the hive. The bees will draw the wax back down and create new comb in the frames. 
My first sighting of a hive beetle :( boo - you dont want these boogers in your hive.
The majority of his hives were doing great. Got a few honey supers to extract (going to attend that activity this week so more pictures to come!)
The apiary was located on a kiwi farm! Didnt even know what a kiwi plant looked like before this visit! Floyd is a master gardener - he has a very unique setup here!
Liked this photo showing how many hives he has and the kiwi in the foreground
This was awesome! To spot the queen so easily - This year is the year of the blue ink to mark queen. Learned that next time we will pay an extra dollar to get our painted. Soo nice when your looking for her among 5,000 other bees!
Again, so easy to spot the queen - but as Frank pointed out...You dont have to identify the queen each time you go in your hive - Just look for evidence of eggs and larvae, then you will know she is there.
It was a good learning opportunity, and such great weather. More pics to come of the honey extraction process!
Quite a few members were out showing their support. The TBA president Frank Walker was leading the learning segments and described what was going on in each of the the hives as we went through them.This is what you will find if you are missing frames in your hive. They will just keep making comb and in all sorts of artsy forms. Not ideal for tending a hive, so we scraped off the wax, put some more frames in the open section and set the wax on top of the hive. The bees will draw the wax back down and create new comb in the frames. My first sighting of a hive beetle :( boo - you dont want these boogers in your hive.
The majority of his hives were doing great. Got a few honey supers to extract (going to attend that activity this week so more pictures to come!)
The apiary was located on a kiwi farm! Didnt even know what a kiwi plant looked like before this visit! Floyd is a master gardener - he has a very unique setup here!
Liked this photo showing how many hives he has and the kiwi in the foreground
This was awesome! To spot the queen so easily - This year is the year of the blue ink to mark queen. Learned that next time we will pay an extra dollar to get our painted. Soo nice when your looking for her among 5,000 other bees!
Again, so easy to spot the queen - but as Frank pointed out...You dont have to identify the queen each time you go in your hive - Just look for evidence of eggs and larvae, then you will know she is there.
It was a good learning opportunity, and such great weather. More pics to come of the honey extraction process!
How fun! Great show of support by you guys, and those pics are fantastic! Kiwis do grow really well here, and their leaves are so pretty!
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