Synopsys

I continue to have numerous problems with hives going queenless causing me to have to pull brood frames from other healthy hives to allow them to raise a new one.  This practice is not sustainable.  I don’t know why all these queens are failing – hives look completely healthy otherwise.  I’ve setup 2 Nucs at the Brooks yard – split from two of the better hives to suplement the queen rearing needs.  PTC and Woolsey yards seem to be most affected by this phenominon – which is funny because they are in very rural locations and have abudant forage.

I’ll be running a bucket of sugar syrup & mega-bee out to PTC and Woolsey tomorrow to supplement the forage and hopefully encourage the queenless hives to do a better job replacing their queen.

PTC 1

Looks good.   4 Frames of bees – lots of brood.  No SHB.  Treated with powdered sugar.

PTC 2

Not so good.  2 Frames of bees.  No Brood or eggs.  More queen problems.  Pulled a frame of brood from PTC 1.

PTC 3

Again – no brood.  Pulled brood frame from #4 Not Cool.

PTC 4

Looks ok.  Not going gangbusters, but there were brood and eggs.

PTC 5

Looks ok.  Brood and eggs, but spotty pattern.

Fayetteville 1

Doing great.  Lots of brood and eggs.  Treated with powdered sugar.  No SHB.

Fayetteville 2

Good eggs and brood.  3 frames of bees.  No SHB.  Treated with powdered sugar.

Fayetteville 3

Good eggs and brood.

Brooks 1

Most of the brood that was in the honey super has since hatched out.  Looks like I lucked out and the queen was in the bottom deep when I put the excluder on last week.  The bees are moving into the honey super and reusing the old brood cells for honey storage.  So far 4 frames are drawn out, but none capped over yet.

Brooks 2

Ready for 2nd deep.  Pulled 2 frames brood and honey and split off Nuc.  Replaced frames with foundation.

Brooks 3

Looks good.  Bees have moved up into the 2nd deep and have begun to draw out comb.

Brooks 4

No real change.  Some activity in honey super, but no comb drawn out.  Bottom deep is full of bees.

Brooks 5

This is probably the most enthusiastic queen I’ve ever seen.  Pulled 2 frames and started Nuc.  Replaced frames with foundation.

Brooks 6

New nuc colony for purposes of queen raising.  Split from Brooks 2

Brooks 7

New nuc colony for purposes of queen raising.  Split from Brooks 5.