Honey Bee Clean Up Crew

I recruited Liam and Seamus to assist with cleaning up our dead hives this morning.  In the end we had three dead outs and two surviving hives (one was super quiet and fooled me when I peeked in a few weeks ago).  

I dissembled the dead hives and removed all the equipment from the bee yard.  

The boys scraped all the dead bees off the bottom boards and into the compost bin.  So, so many dead bees.

Liam and Seamus also dumped the wood shavings from the quilt boards (aka pillow cases) on top of our mushroom patch.  We then stowed all the extra equipment safely in the garage.  All that is left to do now is to extract the honey left in the frames of the three empty hives but that is a big (and very sticky) job - one we will tackle on the weekend.  

Once everything is all cleaned up we will be able to look forward to this year's beekeeping season and make plans for more thorough and consistent varroa mite control.  Onward and upward!