Ok! you are seeing a non-bee project that is not getting done. I have been working too much, and it has been too windy to put up my new metal roof. Consequently, I haven't been able to inspect the bees either. So what does this have to do with beekeeping? The picture above only shows a few bees at the edge of the sheet metal, where earlier today I saw as many as nine bees at a time hanging out at this exact same spot. They were running a shuttle service between this spot and the hive where the average bee would spend about two minutes at this site.
I am guessing that the bees were either getting rust off of the edge of the sheet metal. Or, they found salt. I am betting on the rust. I just added some rusty nails to their watering station in hopes that this helps provide the bees what they need.
The windy day hasn't been a complete loss. I did use that time to start making a new style of frames.
Here is a stack of my old frames just before I hived my two packages. In one of my previous videos, I was discussing how the bees weren't building the comb down below the bottom bar. In the new style of frame, I am extending the frame a few inches further down and I am replacing the bottom piece of wood with a thin wire. Also, I am making the side frames narrower to allow bees access to where the topbar rest on the hive body. This is to allow the bees to use propolis to seal up the hive a little more thoroughly. I'll have more on this when I finish the frames.
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