Buzzing is really a sound of spring. The season has begun in earnest with some warmer weather and interesting finds. The two pictures on the top show the (multicolored!) hives of a master beekeeper we visited on the Eastern Shore. What looks like a solar panel on each of the hives is a solar panel to power a ventilator that is completely self sufficient. This beekeeper was doing experiments in many of his 30-odd hives both with ventilation such as empty chambers on top with holes cut in the sides and a fan to circulate the air, and used a solar ventilator in each hive for a system he found worked very well to avoid stagnant air but not waste the bees energy on fanning in the hot months of the approaching summer. He was utilizing two-queen colonies (Top Right) which leads to a much more productive colony with twice the number of bees because both queens are actively laying. There are two deeps side by side to serve as brood chambers with queen excluders over the shared honey supers and boards half the size of an inner cover to close up the tops of the brood chambers.
On another note, the two pictures on the bottom show how my hives are collecting nectar-fast! I can hardly lift off the top box.
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