Queen cells!

I went back in and checked the now-queenless white hive in the backyard.  You guys, I cut out at least 30 queen cells.  They weren't playing around.  I left them two to raise a new queen with and will check on them in a couple of weeks.

Make Like a Banana and Split

Despite my best attempts at preventing a swarm, I don't think I'm going to be able to do it without splitting.  I took the queen from the white hive and moved her and one other frame of brood into half of the resource hive (have I mentioned that I love that thing?) and added two frames of foundation.  I've heard some debate about my method from other beekeepers, but my theory behind doing it this way was that by removing the queen, the rest of the bees would think that the swarm had already left.  In a couple of days, I'll come back and cull out all but 2 or 3 queen cells to prevent them from swarming with a virgin queen.

For those of you keeping track at home, that makes three hives and a nuc.

It's been awhile

Is it just me, or does bee season progress kind of like starting an old Volkswagen?  It takes awhile to really get started with a few sputters along the way, but once it gets going it really gets going.  All that was to say that it feels like it's been forever since I got to play with the girls (and a few guys now too).  Because I now have three hives I think I need a better way to differentiate between them.  For now, we'll just use color.  The hives in the backyard are white and green.  I know a lot of people just use white, but I tend to use whatever color I can find in the old paint section of my husband's tool room.  The white hive in the backyard is the one that came through winter as a full hive and the green hive is the one that started out the season as a nuc.

The white hive is absolutely bursting with bees.  I found 7-8 frames of brood with enough bees to cover them.  They've moved up into the honey super, but haven't started drawing it out.  Disconcertingly, I found several dry queen cups and a few suspicious looking cells in the ladder comb between the two boxes.  I'm not sure if it was a true queen cell or just an awkwardly shaped cell due to being ladder comb.  I was hoping to avoid having to split this hive this year, as I planned for it to be my main production colony.

The green hive is still moving a little slowly.  I saw a few of the ladies doing the waggle dance, so something they like is blooming somewhere.  They had 5 good frames of brood and have started to draw out a few frames in the top box.  

I'm a bit concerned about the outyard hive.  They only have 4 frames of brood and they are small patches.  There doesn't seem to be enough brood to cover much more, so hopefully once there is a hatch out of nurse bees the population will pick up.  If I have to, I can get a new queen in about 2 weeks.  

One thing I did notice is that the SHB seems much lower today then it did just a few weeks ago.  We had a recent cold snap, so maybe that killed some of them off.  One can only dream, right?

Finally Starting to Feel Like Spring!

It's a beautiful sunny day and the temperature is probably going to hit 70.  The weather hasn't been great for doing much bee work lately, so today is a good day to check everyone's progress.

The outyard hive is slooooooowly building their population.  They have two pretty good looking frames of brood and I was able to locate the queen.  They have quit taking dry sugar, so I took it off.  They are bringing in pollen and maybe nectar.  They seem to have plenty of food (at least 2 frames).  The extended forecast is showing fairly mild temperatures for the next couple of weeks.  I'm going to give them two weeks and then either feed 1:1 syrup or give them a frame of brood if one of the other hives can spare it.

The backyard hive is building up their population nicely.  The queen has moved up into the top box again and has laid 3-4 frames of brood there.  I didn't dive all the way into the bottom box, but will do a full tear-down inspection in two weeks.  I did see some capped drone cells, so swarm season is upon us.  They are bringing in lots and lots of bright yellow pollen.  I went ahead and gave them a honey super with starter strips.  I'm going to attempt to produce comb that can be cut and put in jars of extracted honey.  I had a couple of people specifically request that last year.

The biggest move today was that the nuc graduated into their own full-sized hive.  Their population wasn't building up as quickly as I had hoped, but they did seem to be a bit honeybound, especially in the top box.  There was 2-3 frames of brood in the bottom box.  Because I already had 8 frames drawn and partially filled, I went ahead and put them in a double deep right off the bat.  I put seven frames in the bottom box, and one frame of brood into the center of the top box to draw them up.   I am, as usual, second-guessing doing this.  I think I should have put a frame of honey in the top rather than brood.  I will peek in on them in a day or two to see how they are doing.

First Inspection of 2017

I guess the best place to begin this journey is with spring maintenance.  First up is the nuc that currently occupies one half of a Palmer-style resource hive.  This is a four-over-four setup for a total of 8 frames.  I absolutely love this thing and plan on getting another one either this year or next.  This colony had a cantaloupe-sized brood pattern on one frame (both sides) on bottom box.  I saw the queen and she looks good.  The top box was full of capped and uncapped nectar.   I took 2 frames of uncapped nectar from the top box to give to the hive down the street and replaced them with two frames of drawn comb.  

The full hive in the backyard had a football-sized patch of brood on one frame and a queen.  The queen had moved up into the upper box and there was also 4 frames of capped syrup.  The bottom box was being filled with nectar.  I'm not sure what's blooming, but it's been a very, very mild winter so this isn't altogether unsurprising.  I took one frame of capped syrup and gave them a frame of drawn comb.  Finally, I reversed the top and bottom boxes and arranged the now-top box in a sort of checkerboarded pattern, alternating nectar and drawn comb.  

Last year, we had a significant drought.  We went more than 60 straight days without rain and as a result the normal autumn staples of goldenrod and aster were complete failures.  I spent most of October doing emergency feeding.  The backyard hive and the nuc were fed early and often.  The outyard hive was fed later as I only have one feeder and I just ran out of warm-enough days to get them to take syrup.  The outyard hive had more natural stores to start with, so I took my chances that they would be okay.  

Luckily, it seems I was right and they made it through winter, albeit with a smaller population than the other two.  But, they have burned through all of their stores.  Two weeks ago, I compressed them into a single deep box and gave them dry sugar using the camp mountain method.  They had started taking that sugar, but still had a lot left.  I took the four frames of capped syrup and nectar from the other hives and put them in a box, alternating empty comb with non-empty comb.  That box was placed on top of the single deep box that they were inhabiting.  I attempted to place the sugar on top of the now top double deep setup, but it spilled everywhere.  I hope this doesn't cause ants.  

All in all I can't say that I had terrible results.  Knock on wood, everyone made it through the winter.  I think that the outyard hive will need to be babied to make it through the cold snap that we will inevitably have just after the queen really gets ramped up for spring buildup.  Starving in spring is always a real possibility around here.