Yesterday we did some tweaks to the beehives: adding a top feeder to the orange hive, a queen excluder to the hot pink hive, replacing the base of the turquoise hive, and replacing a few temperature sensors.

Here are the components we brought to the hives:

We replaced the Boardman front feeder on the orange hive with a top feeder that consists of four glass jars in a frame. The sugar water (1:1 ratio) can be accessed by the bees through a hole in the inner cover below:

The feeder is enclosed in a box; we use white boxes for feeders:

Here’s the orange hive with the feeder box from the front:

As previously mentioned, we ordered a base for the turquoise hive, but it was the wrong size, so we got another one. Here’s the hive with the temporary base:

And with the new base:

From the front; much better (you can also see Jenn with her bee jacket, which will be relevant later):

We peeked at the yellow hive while replacing its temperature sensor, and noticed a little comb under inner cover; not approved, but not a big deal (this shows the inner cover hole like I mentioned above):

The hives:

Last night at sunset we added an anti-robbing entrance screen to the orange hive, since it is the weakest hive, and has the feeder. This screen has an entrance hole at the top, with a second one in the normal place that is closed. The idea is that this unusual arrangement prevents alien bees from invading the hive. We added it at sunset so the bees would be home, so they learn the new arrangement when they leave in the morning:

This morning Jenn cracked a couple of hives to add temperature sensors that had to be reset, and was rewarded with a couple of stings on her legs (as she was wearing the bee jacket, as above, instead of full suit). One of the joys of beekeeping.