Now that the cam seems to be working, I have updated the configuration information on the "about" page.This is the third major change since the came went up. Sponsors appreciated if there are any of you out there! As for what you see, well it now is temperature dependent. We had our first hard freeze here, so they have formed a cluster deep in the hive away from the cam.I'm sure, however that at least for the next several weeks, during the daytime, they will be a bit further out in the hive, so activity may be seen. Oh. By the way. Bee Butt syndrome is back - they do like to warm their butts on the IR lights if they are in that section of the hive.You willk see a lot of bee butts. And yes, when you do see a bee, it is mega magnified and bee parts as they appear on the cam, are in incredible detail.I have a streaming monitor in our house, and they look like sci-fi monsters!

Still tweaking it a bit, so you will only see "still" photos occasionally until I have all the new mac stuff configured right.And, since I put all this time and effort into it, I am adding shameless keywords again, as I really would like someone to see it:

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UPDATE:... found a beta version of software that will do the conversion perfectly, it still has a bug or two according to the Developer, but will be out shortly... see the pix below. Now I will be looking for cam software so the pix can go back on the web page in a live feed.... stay tuned....

The thing about OSX and Macs in general is that they are just wonderful, and fun. Yes, work is fun on a Mac. The flip side, is that the duo core processor is so new that very little non-mac analog digital converts work on it. I bought some new software that said it would work with my configuration, but it froze up and crashed. For now, only Apple cams seem to work on the mac, as I cant get my IR analog to work on it. So for now, and the near future, the cam will be down until I can afford to get a Mac digitalizer and related software. I thought about putting a basic QuickCam webcam or similar cam in the hive, but none come with IR lights, so viewing would be close to nill. Stay tuned.

Meantime, we finally packed out what little honey we had this year. It was totally different in color and taste than in previous years. The sweetness was up, and the strong Loosestrife flavor and color was not present. The taste was a bit minty, and quite good! Thank you bees!!!!

Sorry to say, my should have been retired server is now toast. I will be replacing it this week with a Mac, as I am tired of Windows and Windows baced PC's. Look for the cam up and running within a week or so.

Well, we finally got to bring in honey this past weekend, as the first part of getting the hives medicated, and ready to winter over. Sadly, this was the worst year for honey I have seen in a very long time. I'm not really surprised since we had a late, wet spring, and wet summer, not to mention the 2 swarms in the spring. I had only one box of honey this year. Usually there are 2 or three. The one box was from the Carniolans, as usual. The plus to this, if any, is that both the Buckfast hives started to at least draw comb. This is a good hint that their numbers are recovered after the swarms. More notes will be put in this month as I check for mites and medicate. There is always next year..... sigh.

The Carniolans filled a medium super in a matter of a few weeks, and are close to filling the second super with incredibly delicious honey! Although the Buckfasts are not hammering the nectar as well as the Carniolans, they are finally building cimb in the supers, and should contribute to the Honey harvest during the Fall flow.

There was this delightful beekeeper in our beekeeping association who heard about the bee swarm, and carefully boxed the bees and gave them a good brand new home in Harvard, MA. Well... three hours after they were introduced into their new home, the bees checked out for places unknown. Methinks these bees are destined to roam forever, and anyone who caputres them again, will likely be creating a hive wtih incredibly strong inclinations to swarm every year.

I have started adding supers on the three hives, although now that the apple tree hive swarmed I have doubts of how much it will produce this year, if any. The swarm bees, by the way still havent found a home yet. They went to a really low branch on the tree and are still, pardon the pun, hanging around. 4 plus pounds purebred Buckfast bees. Come take them... they need a good home. I just don't want another hive this year. -me-

Over the weekend I made the photo links (hopefully) much easier to use. I cleaned out all that java crap, and found a simple cross platform script to use, making them much easier and faster to open. Also, I kinda' think I ma typing all this for myself because the number of rss readers is kind of low. For that reason, and that reason only, I am including some non-bee key words here as a shameless attempt to get more viewers: jlow president Bush war sex floods church temple mosque 24 final episode Survivor Iraq Iran Israel immigration border

Question. What happens to a bee hive after a cold spell and 10 non stop days of rain and wind? Well, they get one perfect sunny day, and they decide to Swarm. On the one hand, this means the hive is well and strong and happy and all that good stuff. On the other hand, most of my hard working bees followed their old leader and left the hive.

The hive that swarmed, was from the same colony that was a captured swarm last year (Apple Tree hive). SO, this is a classic example of beedom where a good queen with swarm characteristics builds a colony of bees that like to swarm. That, after all, is why bees survive. Oh well. Lost of pictures of the swarm as it happened on the web site so check it out. Oh. So I am out there barefoot and in shorts and t-shirt in the middle of the activity, snapping pictures of the swarming. Someone walking by froze in fright, and asked why I wasn't flipping out and running from the bees (estimated 20,000 or so). I guess to a non beekeeper, I was the show, not the bees. Hey, my bees love me. They aren't going to hammer me, so long as I don't bother them while they are in a great meeting of the minds about organizing their new family. Why are people afraid of honey bees????

The computer that I used for a server is dying, so I am moving the cam to a new XP machine, and replacing the hardware with a digital (current one is analog) color IR cam with higher resolution that the older one. The cam will also be relocated in a hive closer to the CPU to assure no loss of signal from line extensions. Project completion time will be the first week of June. Stay tuned...

Meantime, the bees are doing great, and hammering pollen. Lots of Baby Bees are emerging and everything inside looks great.

The server that is home to the Yup-Beecam is down for the next few days, and will likely be restarted on Monday 5/1/2006. The ISP, RCN.com has several outages in our neighborhood, and are taking way too much time to fix it. What ever happened to Customer Service???

This past weekend all the hives were medicated for mites. (2) get formic acid treatments for 21 days, and the third gets Apistan. The reason for this is comparison. Hive health is best monitored when you have other hives to compare it to. The three hives are on the same schedual, so in the fall (1) hive gets the formic acid, and (2) will get the Apistan. This rotation also prevents the hives from becoming resistant to Apistan, which can happen when it is used freqiently for Varroa.

Well. The longer days, and a few warm days in a row has activated the hives. All three were out and about Sunday, so I decided to start medication and feeding. Fumidol (for Nosema). Expensive medicine which was developed only for beekeepers. If you want good hives, you need to use this product every spring. Wintering over in clusters prevents bees from cleaning and cleansing themselves, and Nosema is a disease that thrives in those cramped conditions. So, three hives, three feeders filled with sugar water and bee meds. Its Bee Season !!!! In two weeks, I will start Varroa treatments. Last fall I used Apistan, so to prevent an imunity issue, this spring I will use Formic Acid. Bring on the pollen and flowers!!!

Well, Winter came back with a vengance. The bees are tightly balled up again, deep in the hive. I didn't feed yet, and won't start to stimulate them until the weather indicates that Spring is here. We are having the coldest temperatures of the season right now.

To feed or not to feed. That is the question. There was no winter so far this winter. If I feed now, and it gets cold, and we have a late spring, I may overstimulate the bees, and they will polish off their stored honey. That translates into a small honey harvest. If the weather stays good, and I feed and medicate now, that translates into a wonderful honey harvest. I will have to decide this week, so stay tuned....

I am a much better beekeeper than technogeek. This URL works!

Whatever activity there was over the past few days is over, and viewers can see in the pictures (2) swarm cells. I'm not sure if that is some sort of debris or not, and whii check it when conditions allow, but that looks really strange to me, but would explain the unusual activity over the past few days.

I wonder if the bees are up to something.......