Bee Yard Upgrade

I've been trying to keep my operation small, so for so good, but some times I think I may want another one or two and then I scramble to make all the parts and the last thing I think of is a stand. So after a few years of visiting other bee yards during field days with the NBBA and seeing how others bee yards are laid out, I finally decided to give my yard a little upgrade. Gone are the individual hive stands, (which worked very well for me so far) and install new bench type stand with a bit more room. To me the area looks larger and much better, only time will tell. Here is a before and after look at the two sides of my bee yard. 

Bee Yard Prep Work

Over the past few weeks we have given the "Girls" about 18 liters of sugar syrup, some with medication to help them come out of the winter and as previously mentioned, protein patties. When I added the patties, I thought they would be too thick to put just between the supers so I added a spacer, and inexperience showed, because when we removed the spacer they drew down comb and the queen did her job. This is not where we want the brood to be so this bit of comb had to be removed, to set the super back on top. They weren't very happy.

They have been very busy collecting pollen, as we can clearly see the pollen baskets are full, this is a very good sign. We started to prep the bee yard, clearing away old brush, around and an area behind the hive. This will give us future space to expand, if needed. As well I laid two more pads for when we split this one. It maybe ambitious but they are very strong, so we'll see about truing this one into three. There will be lots for them to gather as there are 6 acres just out their door and several other fields, larger less then a km away. We'll see how it goes throughout the summer.

The hive with the spacer, very active, nice day.

What I had to remove after the spacer came off.

Still busy collecting pollen.

You can see the different colour pollen in their baskets.

Getting ready to split.