Brooks Hive 1

Looks good.  Moderate activity in honey super.  This one will be ready for 2nd deep soon.  I want to at least get a frame or two of honey out of it this year if possible.  If we do it before the fall honey flow that should be doable without affecting their ability to put away winter stores.  SHB trap was clean.  Dusted with powdered sugar.  5 frames of bees.

Brooks Hive 2

Feeder empty so I pulled it.    Saw queen and brood on 2nd frame I pulled so no need to check further.  Good honey and pollin stores building.  SHB trap was clean.  6 frames of bees.  Dusted with powdered sugar.

Brooks Hive 3

Looks good.  7 frames of bees.   This one will be ready for a 2nd deep soon.  Pulled one frame and found brood so no need to go any further.  SHB trap was clean.  Dusted with powdered Sugar.

Brooks Hive 4

No brood in this one and no queen.  Damn.  Pulled brood and a frame of bees from Brooks Hive 5. Hopefully they’ll raise another queen.  Fingers crosed.

Brooks Hive 5

Population building rapidly.  This one will be ready for another deep soon as well.  SHB trap was clean.  Dusted with powdered sugar.

Hive 1

Only pulled one frame and it looks good.  Solid brood nest and the population is increasing rapidly.  Changing inspection schedule as noted below

Hive 2

The queen has finally started laying in this one and the brood nest is packed with eggs and yound larve.   Pulled feeder.  Changing inspection schedule as noted below.

Hive 3

Same as 2 – looks like the queen has come into her own and has started laying.  Changing inspection schedule as noted below. 

Hive 4

This one was split last week to prevent a swarm.  Surprisingly, I didn’t find any eggs or brood.  Investigating further – I couldn’t find the queen and queen cells have been built along the bottom of the frames (supercedure / replacement cells).  Crap.  I was very careful not to get the queen in the nuc that I split off last week, but it’s possible that I managed to anyway – or worse kill or damage her while I was manipulating the frames.  This is not good.  This hive was by far the most active and had the best chance for a good spring harvest.  This is bad timing of high calibur.

The lid is badly warped on ths colony and needs to be replaced.  Add it to the list.  I may replace it with a passive solar ventilator hood I’ve been designing  to see how it works.

Nuc 1

Doing well.  Pulled the feeder and replaced with a frame of foundation.  This one will be ready for a full deep soon.

Nuc 2 – Woolsey Outyard

Noticed this one bearding up on the front, but it wasn’t hot enough at the time (about 74 degrees).  Suspected overcrowding and popped the top to find the box packed with bees.  Good giggly.  On Monday, I moved this one into a full size deep, but didn’t mess with it otherwise.   It seemed very active and given the disruption of moving the colony to new hive body, I didn’t want to disturb it any more than I had to. 

Overview

Changing inspection schedule on hives 1, 2, and 3 to weekly observation and opening the tops for a check every three to four weeks (except honey supers which will be visually checked every week.)

With the spring nectar flow going strong, all the hives now have feeders removed.  I’m concerned that the now presumably queenless hives will become honey bound with a strong nectar flow and empty cells in the broodnest.  I’ve got some drawn comb standing by in case.  

I’m almost ready for the packages that are scheduled to arrive on the 5th.  All that remains is to put the second coat on the rest of the tops and one more hive body.   Then I’ll seal around the edges of the roof flashing with silicone.  The woodenware I got from Orr Bee Supply was good quality and and I’ll post a follow up review in the coming days.

Routine hive check to see how things are going that turned into a situation.  Oi.

Saw a few small hive beetles and took great joy in crunching their little bodies.  Beetle traps looked relatively clean.

Hive 1

Finally saw queen and brood in this one.   Once I saw brood, I didn’t need to find the queen she just happened to be on the first frame I pulled.  I was beginning to get concerned, but all seems well.  There were a solid 8 or so frames of bees with plenty of pollin and honey (mostly syrup) stores.  I pulled the feeder to make ready for the honey flow.  There was moderate activity in the honey super.  Some workers were drawing out comb, but not much yet.  

Hive 2

Feeder was still half full of syrup.  This one is not looking as good as it could – especially going into the honey flow.  The queen is present, but no brood.  Only 5 or so frames of bees.  I pulled a brood frame from Nuc 1 to bolster the population.  Gimpy queen maybe?  They don’t seem to be rejecting her, she just doesn’t seem to be motivated.  I pulled some of the old comb in the brood nest (since it wasn’t being used yet anyway and replaced it with foundation – thinking perhaps that she doesn’t find the comb suitable for laying.  I would have liked to just replace it with newer drawn comb, but didn’t have any on hand.  This is one to keep an eye on.  If I don’t see any brood soon, I’m going to re-queen it.

Hive 3

This one is looking crappy too.  No brood.  No queen.  I did find a single queen cell.  Only 4 frames of bees.  Pulled a frame of brood from #4 to bolster population and give them an opportunity to raise another queen.  

Hive #4

The one caught me off guard.  I popped the top and it was bubbling over with bees.  The honey super was getting some traffic too.  10 full frames of bees – and this was on a nice afternoon so that doesn’t account for the forragers out in the field.  This hive was in full swarm preparation gear.  Numerous swarm cells around the brood nest.   Yikes.  I split this one into another Nuc.  Which will be Nuc 2 going forward.

Nuc #1

This one looks good and will probably need to be moved to a full sized hive body in the next couple weeks.  Chuck full of bees.  I pulled a frame of brood for hive 2 and replaced it with foundation.  Brood pattern is solid.  Looks good.

Nuc #2

This is a swarm-prevention split from hive # 4.  Moved to Woolsey outyard this evening.

Hive 1

Took a peep in there.  Couldn’t find the queen, but did see young larve so I’m assuming all is well.  Added syrup as needed.

Hive 2

All is well – lots of bees in this one – about 8 frames worth.  They had eaten the feeder dry.  Added more syrup and a beetle eater.  Saw one small hive beetle.

Hive 3

No sign of queen yet, queen cells are still intact so it should be any day now.  Topped off syrup and added a beetle eater.

Hive 4

This is by far the strongest hive of the 5.  No changes needed.

Nuc 1

Queen cells were open, although I didn’t see her and no sign of eggs yet.  Topped off with syrup and megabee.

Quick check on hives number 1 and 3 to confirm queen cell production.

Hive #1
A few days ago I added another frame of brood and eggs from hive #2 to give the bees another chance to raise a queen. To my surprise, the girls took the chance and there were 4 queen cells hanging off various points of the brood frame I put in. Good news.

Hive # 3 – Nuc #1 Split
Hive 3 still has a ton of bees in it. Much more than I would have expected at this point since they’re quenless. Checking for cells I found 7 well-formed cells on two different frames. I decided to split off a nuc. I pulled one of the frames with the queen cells, a frame of honey, frame of pollin, and another empty frame of drawn comb from last year. All went into a 5 frame nuc with a frame feeder, 2:1 syrup, and Megabee. (This will be Nuc # 1 going forward.) I placed the nuc on top of the parent hive and faced it the opposite direction.
I would have been able to split another nuc off one of #1′s queen cells, but I’m out of nuc boxes right now. I have one more, but it’s being painted.

Crappy weather today for opening a hive, but it’s supposed to be heavy rain for the next 4 days or so and that’s too long to go just after splitting the hives to not check on them.

Hive 1 is a single deep with a frame feeder. Crappy weather kept all the foragers indoors so the box was packed with bees. No shortage of pollen or stored syrup. Too early for that much honey to be in there. Unable to find queen or any sign of queen activity. No brood left and no queen cells either. Come on, girls – get with it! Moved frame of brood from Hive 2 which was a mix of eggs, young larvae and sealed brood.

Hive 2 is a single deep with Frame feeder and is the other half of the Hive 1 split. Found the queen and copious amounts of pollen, stored honey, and brood. The queen is very young – about 2 thirds the size of a normal queen but obviously not intimidated by her diminutive stature. The brood pattern looked pretty solid.

Hive 3 is a single deep with a medium super on top. This hive has generous amounts of stored honey and pollen – so there is no feeder on it at present. There is no queen in this hive (she was discovered in Hive 4), but the bees have built and sealed a few queen cells, so things are coming along according to plan.

Hive 4 is the other half of the split that created Hive 3. I was able to find the queen easily in this one. She is a mature queen, large and solid orange – almost like a hornet. She really stands out amongst her smaller and much browner daughters. The brood nest is filled with eggs and brood in various stages. Pollen and honey stores look good. No cause to worry with this one right now.

I’m going to keep an eye on the queen cells. The opportunity may present itself to do a 2 or 3 frame split with a nuc or two if I can salvage some viable queen cells. We’ll see.