Whew!

Have you ever had one of those days where you ask yourself "why the heck do I do this again?"

In the outyard, the hive in the old stand had 6 sealed queen cells, so queenlessness is confirmed.  I'm still at a loss as to what happened and why it doesn't even look like they attempted to raise a new queen.  Maybe she was poorly mated and by the time they realized it there were no suitable eggs.  I would expect to see a lot of drone comb in that case, and I'm not really seeing that.  Requeening has been my Achilles heel this season.

The hive in the new stand has lots and lots of bees.  They're really working on the super that I gave them last week.  What I gave them last week was the super frames from last year that didn't get fully capped.  I kept them in the freezer over the winter and gave them back to the bees last week.  I was afraid that the moisture from the thawing super might be a problem, but they look okay.  I'm not sure how much they've actually done vs. how much was already there, but I went ahead and gave them and empty super because the one they have is pretty full already and I'm seeing a bit of white wax on the bottom of the inner cover.

Now, on to the backyard.  I didn't open up the white hive.  If the last requeening worked then I wouldn't expect her to have started laying just yet.  I'll give her a few more days before I go in and start disturbing things.  The orange hive is going nuts.  They've drawn out 6-7 frames in the super, including some of the frames with starter strips.  They may need another super sooner rather than later.  The light green hive is drawing comb out faster now.  I didn't think they would need a super this year, but I might have been wrong.  I did notice at least one case of DWV in the hive, so that doesn't make me happy.  I'll start OAV treatment next week when I do the green nuc.

Speaking of the green nuc, the queen is still caged and still alive.  I'll release her on Wednesday and treat with OAV on the following Tuesday.  There is one patch of capped brood in her jail cell and some that will be emerging shortly.  The hive is starting to get honeybound.  They need at least one frame of foundation to play with.

Now we come to the Auburn hive.  I didn't check on them last week.  I should have.  It is bursting at the seams with bees.   I found 3 swarm cells in various stages.  One with an egg and one that's only a day or so from being capped.  They were definitely getting ready to swarm.  I moved all of the swarm cells into one half of the box and left the rest of the frames in the original half.  I'm hoping that the queen is in the half that doesn't have the queen cells.  I didn't see her, but made a guess based on the bees' attitude.  I'm going to go in and dig through a little deeper tomorrow.  I was trying to beat out the rain today.  I took the top story off, but really need to add it back on ASAP.

So, what makes this day so difficult?  I was not expecting to have to split the Auburn nuc and I'm completely out of deep frames.  In fact, the orange hive only has 9 frames in the top brood box.  I'm also down to 2 spare supers.  I need 9 deep frames immediately and would like to have another 8 on hand to fill the green nuc's other half when that time comes.  No problem I thought.  There is a bee supply shop about an hour from my house that I can always swing by in case of emergency.  So, I packed up the kiddo, picked up my mom to ride with us (because the kiddo wanted Maw-Maw), and off we went.  We made it two blocks before the sensor panel lit up on the Jeep.  The back passenger side tire is low.  It's been low for a few days.  My husband plugged a hole from a nail a few days ago and added air, but I thought he just hadn't added enough to bring it up to spec.  The front passenger side is now also low.  Really, really low.  So, around the block and back home we go.  Bust out the bucket of soapy water and sure enough there is a nail in the front tire.  And one in the back tire.  By this time, its already 4:00 so there's no way we're going to make it to the shop before they close, the tire shops are already closed, and the last resort of Wal-Mart is going to have to order my tires so we're definitely not going anywhere.  And then the rain started.  Ugh.