We have an observation hive set up in the front window of the Beez Neez Apiary Supply. It has four frames and a swivel base. This makes it easy to rotate it from one side to the other and accomodate the customers asking "Where is the queen?" As luck would have it the queen is usually on the opposite side of the hive when that question is asked. She is marked with a big white dot on her thorax so finding the queen isn't difficult. The observation hive is a big hit with the customers regardless whether they are beekeepers or merely purchasing honey.

   I purchased the observation hive through the internet.  I won't pass on the manufacturer's name as I wasn't impressed with his woodworking skills. I expected better quality for the price I paid.  I really like the general design but it had one very serious flaw.  It had no door.  You couldn't put bees in or take bees out without removing the top and sliding out the glass from one of the sides.  To describe this lack of a door as merely inconvenient is a gross understatement. Quentin, my woodworking mentor, assisted me in making a door.  I then mounted the swiveling base onto a migratory lid and two deep hive bodies. There are ten frames available for the bees to use in the first deep box while I installed a cleanout drawer in the lower  deep. The whole apparatus sits on a dolly with wheels so I can wheel it outside when I need to do some work with the bees.

    There is a way for the bees to get outdoors by means of a plastic tube (1.5 inch diameter) that leads from the upper deep hive body over to the window sill and up the window to a board with a hole to the outside.  There is also a "T" junction that leads over to a feeding station. We removed the upper window and replaced it with the board with the exit hole.  This summer we added a small pollen trap to the exit, not with the idea of trapping pollen but to give the bees a landing board. It all seems to be working pretty well right now.

   We are on our third batch of bees in the observation hive. The current colony is ruled by the benevalent Elise the First. They are from one of our many queen banks we did this summer.  I released the last remaining queen into this particular queen bank making it a two frame nuc colony. I installed them into the observation hive in mid August. Elise went right to work and within a few weeks we had two frames of capped brood. At that point they had all the brood they could care for so Elise had to slow down for a few weeks until new nurse bees started to emerge.  The colony increased to three frames of brood before the queen began to reduce her laying due to the changing season. At present, they have less than a half frame of capped brood and within a month they will probably have no brood at all.

   I pulled the observation hive outside this past Saturday. It was a somewhat sunny day and I needed to find out what was going on in the deep hive body immediately below the observation hive. I was curious as to whether the bees had drawn out any of the frames and whether they had stored any honey or pollen below. I had also seen some wax moth show up on the bottom slideout board.  I was surprized to learn that the bees had not drawn out any of the lower frames. The wax  moths weren't breeding in the lower combs at all, but rather they were breeding in the pile of dead bees in the screened cleanout drawer in the bottom deep box.(Note to self, check the cleanout drawer more frequently) I was also surprized to find about two frames of bees congregating on undrawn frames in the deep hive body.  At least I have a good idea as to the current population of the hive (five frames of bees) and know they have no stored honey or pollen other than what is visible in the observation hive.