Out of the frying pan...

...And into the heat of an Alabama summer.

Did a check on (almost) all the hives today.  In the outyard, the hive that I have been concerned about has finally started getting rev'ed up.  The pictured frame is like like this front and back.  The pattern isn't going to win any awards, but I think it will be enough to get them through the winter.  The queen has gained some size and has started on a second frame of eggs.  Whew.  I guess the bees really did know what was best.  

  

The new queen has finally gotten busy.

The second hive in the outyard has a virgin queen, pictured below.  They also have an unhatched queen cell.  I left it in and am questioning that decision, but the virgin walked right by it and didn't attempt to cull it.

Another (blurry) queen pic.

In the backyard, the orange hive has filled and capped 7 frames in the super that they were left.  It's very pretty, white capped honey.  I put the escape board down and will pull it tomorrow.  They looked like they were doing a pretty good job of filling the top box.  I didn't see any brood, but it's still a bit early for that.  

In the white hive, the bees were in a very foul mood.  When I opened them up, they poured out of the inner cover and all around me.  One of them found her way into my jacket and a few found a way through my jacket, so I had to put on a second jacket.  That's never a fun thing.  Thankfully, the beekeeping gods were shining down on me because the very first frame I pulled contained eggs, larvae, and capped brood.

The Auburn nuc looked good.  I thought I smelled slimed honey, but didn't see it or really very many SHBs for that matter.  Both sides had a strong population, so maybe I'm just being paranoid.  

The dark green nuc was a mixed bag.  The weaker half finally has a queen.  It's funny because I had to go down to the last frame in the bottom box to find any evidence of a queen.  When I did find it, I could have sworn that I saw multiple eggs in some of the cells.  I know that young queens sometimes release too many eggs at first.  I was seeing two, sometimes three, eggs in a several cells.  Just as I had convinced myself that I had a laying worker, I spotted the queen with her back end stuck down in a cell laying.  

The stronger half of the nuc has apparently either cast a swarm or decided to requeen for some other reason.  I'm thinking swarm because there were about 6 queen cells that were capped (or close to it).  They must have started building these things just after I closed it up last time because I've been keeping an eye out for signs of swarming.  This is the second time this year that I've had a hive swarm after the solstice with seemingly plenty of room left.  This half of the nuc had 3 frames of foundation that they hadn't even started to draw out.  In fact, I'm kind of concerned with the amount of comb that's not being drawn right now.  There is obviously something still coming in.  I've tried feeding twice in the outyard and both times the syrup has fermented before they used it.  So they definitely aren't going hungry.  But at the same time they aren't drawing foundation either.  This is happening in multiple hives, so I just don't know what to think.

I didn't get in the light green hive today due to a close call with heat exhaustion.  I didn't realize until it was too late that the temp had gotten up to about 94 degrees.  I tried to do too much and almost got sick.  Let that be a lesson to you boys and girls.  Drink lots of water and pace yourself.  Don't be like me.  

Just a quick nuc update

Nothing like spending the Fourth of July in a hot bee suit checking on the girls.  Gotta love it!  I decided to take a peek in on the nucs yesterday.  I've decided that if I had it to do again (and for that matter might transition to n the future), I'd definitely concentrate on raising nucs rather than full sized colonies.  They take a little more attention, but inspections are so much nicer.

So, the older half of the dark green hive is chugging along.  They have a good bit of brood, but they also look like they are starting to turn the upper box into winter stores.  This is a good sign.  I believe that there is still forage available because the hives in the outyard that are being fed are not taking it nearly as quickly as I would have expected if we were in a true dearth.

The newer half of the dark green hive is starting to draw out the foundation that they had, so that's another decent sign that the summer dearth hasn't totally set in yet.  They are still very slooooowly raising brood.  But it seems that there is mutiny amongst the masses.  I found two queen cups in what would traditionally be considered a supercedure location.  I believe that these are being used or going to be used because I saw workers going in and out of them.  I couldn't see for sure whether there was an egg in it or not.  (On a side note, why does the sun have to go behind clouds just as I need a good bright light to see eggs?)  I've been debating what to do about this colony for a couple of weeks now.  The queen had gotten a slow start, but now doesn't seem to be ramping up at all.  She's also still quite a bit smaller than her sister queens.  The workers now seem to have caught on to this fact too and are attempting to raise a queen before winter.  I hope it works for them.  There are still drones in other hives, so I think that we still have a little time.  I called my local source for queens, but they are out for the year, so if this colony is going to make it then they are going to have to raise a queen.

Both sides of the Auburn nuc look fantastic.  One side is starting to fill up the top  box for winter while the other is still raising a lot of brood.  That side will make an excellent brood donor if I end up needing it.