11-29-2010 6am 19deg F, Garden Hive

This is the Garden Hive at 6am and 19 deg F. I still have yet to see the "dripping" killing moisture everyone talks about. Maybe in Feb or March when brood rearing kicks up, but so far so good. This cluster looking down, was a nice tight cluster where i could see all the edges and it is about the size of a basketball, although i dont know how "deep" the cluster runs. Sure would be nice to have an IR camera...

Thanksgiving Day Garden Hive

Cluster Difference Observation

So i was looking back at my previous post and noticed more than just condensation. I noticed how the garden hive's cluster has reduced in size. Take a look at the 11/7 picture on top compared to the 11/19 picture. The 11/7 picture was about 10 degrees colder than when i took the 11/19 picture but yet the 11/19 picture shows a smaller cluster. Nothing wrong with this. Just wanted to pass on a neat tidbit i noticed based on this blog and the pictures. Of course we are getting deeper and deeper into winter...

Friday Morning Quick Pic By the Garden 11/19/2010

Hive by the garden, by far this one always seems to have the most moisture... although it doesnt hang around long. Maybe i need to start taking "follow-up" pictures at timed intervals.

Early Morning Before Sun Up on Wednesday

Here is a single picture i took of the hive i have near my garden which is a single deep and one medium. It is the same hive two post below which has all the moisture. Due to the lack of moisture i wonder if its temperature related or have they hatched all the brood they had? I am sure its a little of both. The temperature at 5:45 am was right at 50 deg F...

Sunday Morning Moisture At My In Laws

I finally got around to moving three hives i had at my in laws which i had placed near his pond. Great summer location and it looked nice, but horrible possibly moist location for the cool winter. So i moved them up the hill beside the chicken houses so that the houses blocked the Northwest Winds, plus they get all day sun and face south!!!

As you can see very little if any moisture at this point. The pictures were taken right around 8am Sunday morning prior to bee flight with temps in the mid 30's F...

Here are a few pictures of two different hives with my "darker" bees from queens i got from Mike Carney http://www.carneyqueens.com/ this year. So far i have been very pleased...

Sunday Morning Moisture

Below you will find a few pictures of 3 different hives in 3 different areas around my property. The one with all the mositure contains the most brood (atleast as of last weekend), the others had or has pretty much shut down brood rearing, hence the least amount of moisture. These pictures were taken around 7am with first light just hitting the hives, heavy frost was still on the outer covers and water was frozen as you can see. It only took the hives about 1 hour to clean up all the mositure if they had any...

The one with all the mosture is a deep and one medium, the others are double deeps. All contain huge amounts of bees and honey.

Plexiglass Inner Covers

I am planning on using these to montior moisture levels in 6 of my hives since i DONT ventilate the top part of my hives. Last year i had great success not ventilating the top and want to confirm some other thoughts that can be seen on Dennis Murrell's site http://beenatural.wordpress.com/natural-beekeeping/observations/condensation/ ...