An avid gardener and outdoorsman, I started beekeeping in 2009, give or take, and began using this journal as a way to document my trials and tribulations. Over the years, it has become a part of my hobby, recording events here.
I am honestly not sure what to make of this, but I checked the Westover Hive top feeder (just to see if they were eating from it) and it was empty! A bunch were all in it, licking up the scraps, but the syrup was bone dry. There were a couple of ants, but not a ton (so, they could not be the source of this hunger.) The last couple of days have been sunny off-and-on with cloudy weather and the occasional spurt of rain (I picked up one-tenth of an inch yesterday). Maybe this weather had them holed up. Whatever the reason, I went with it and put a gallon-and-a-half in there for them to work on. Hopefully, they are using this stuff to fill out that top deep. I look forward to the next inspection (probably mid-week.) I’ll have to break them down completely, just to see what is going on (my queen should be two or more years old, so I am half-way expecting them to try a supercedure at some time.)
At this rate, I might be doing a split on this hive in June!
I couldn’t get out at lunch, but the weather was so nice in Central Virginia (when I got home from work) that I decided to give them a quick, late afternoon check. I was only going to break a few frames out of the top deep, so I didn’t think it would be a big deal.
The swarm has definitely started to make a little progress on the top deep. They had tear drop-shaped sections of about 3 frames (both sides) drawn and capped with honey. Although the Albo hive had started to work on their honey super at the bottom of the super, this hive started at the top (of the Deep). The sections probably take up about a third of each frame face. Also, a fair amount of each frame also had a lot of area that they were just starting to draw out and (rarely) store a little nectar in.
Once again, these bees did not sting me, but they are definitely on edge. They are nowhere near as gentle as my two purchased, 1 year old hives. There is always a bee checking me out and she rarely bores of this task (unlike the two other hives, where they go back to work after buzzing around me for 15 seconds or so.) I did not use any smoke this time, but was a bit nervous with my shorts on. I am probably being too paranoid about these bees, but they keep the adrenaline flowing!
Put a gallon and a half of syrup in the top feeder and left them be. I must say, they have a ton of bees inside the hive, although they do not have anywhere near the amount of traffic that I see at the Albo and Geronimo hives. I’ll check them again next week. I would sort of like to actually find the queen, just to get a look at her (some folks claimed that the reason that the swarm was on the ground was because the old gal couldn’t fly – I’d like to see if I can actually see some evidence of this problem.)
We received a nice rain over the past few days here in the Richmond, Virginia area. I personally picked up an inch and 3 tenths. This is not a ton of rain, but it literally fell over a period of about 20 hours. It was a perfect rain, soaking in to the last drop. This is going to be a boon for my gardens and, I would guess, the bees, since the nectar producing plants should really have the resources to work at full steam now.
I decided to check the feeder on the Westover Hive, just to see if they were making progress. I do not know what the cause was (either the rain kept them inside, the new brood hatched out and increased the population or they simply decided to start using it more), but they have finished off all of the syrup. A gallon in a week and a half is pretty good, for this time of year. I am now wondering how much of that second deep they have drawn out. It is really impossible for me to entertain the idea that they are going to fully draw that out before the end of May, but who knows. I like the thought of a bunch of country (feral) bees working their tails off.
I’ll make up another batch of syrup tonight and give them a look see tomorrow or Friday during lunch. I know it is not drawn out yet, but I need to know what kind of progress they are making. This daggone hive could swarm again if I do not keep an eye on them!
Once again, the bees pay a terrible price for my education! It wasn’t all that bad, but it wasn’t pretty.
James Kiser, a member of the East Richmond Beekeeper’s Association that lives just down the road from me, stopped by to watch me check my hives. As I did a full inspection of all three hives last week, I was only doing some quick checks this week (I currently do full inspections every two weeks during the flow, although a bud at work, Doug Ladd (a beekeeper with more experience then me who lives to the west of Richmond), recommends a full inspection every week – something I may try if I start losing hives to swarms), but James was interested in watching since he is getting his first Nuc from Tom this year.
At the last ERBA meeting, Kenny Andrews recommended simply turning the top Deep on its side to check for swarm cells. Since the only goals for the look at the Geronimo hive this week were to check for swarm cells and see if they were working the honey super (Illinois super in my case,) I turned the top Deep on its side and bees poured out of the side and several were squished on the top of the bottom deep (which I was using as the base, like an idiot). I ended up moving it over on top of the super (which was still untouched, although bees were all over it this time) to have a look. I think I should have made sure that the frames were perpendicular to the ground because all of the frames swung to one side, probably messing with the bees on the frames (one of which could have been my daggone queen!) I stuck with it, though, and smoked the bottom and could not see any evidence of swarm cells. All in all, a ton of bees died and I am only somewhat confident that no swarm cells exist. This hive is so chock full of bees that it really must be thinking about swarming. I will probably take some time from work during lunch this week and do a full inspection. The one plus to this is that they never got mad. I couldn’t believe it, with all of the squished bees. I guess they have come to the sad conclusion that the dopey animal that messes with them each week is simply going to kill a few of us and we might as well go on about our business until the fool leaves! I don’t know how Kenny does this trick, but I will not be trying it again until I get more advice.
As to the Albo hive, I was only checking the honey (Illinois) super. This hive had less activity at the landing board, but they had just started to draw out some of the honey super. It was definitely a positive sign. I might get some honey this year after all! Doug has planted the seed about splits in my brain and I want to get some honey before I do it.
Finally, the only goal with the Westover hive was to remove the top feeder. They were not using it when I checked last Wednesday and I wanted to get it off. The only reason I had it on was because of some fairly wise beekeeper online saying that he feeds them until they draw out the two supers (Deep’s in my case) that they will live in. These bees, as of last weekend, had drawn out the bottom deep and had just started the top deep. But, I didn’t want to keep that syrup on them if they weren’t using it (it will ferment eventually.) But, as it turned out, I had 20 to 30 bees in the well with about a third of them eating the syrup. So, I left that on and that was that (unlike the Geronimo hive, these bees do not put up with a lot of shenanigans, so I am more inclined to let them do their thing without my mucking about in there.)
James didn’t get much of a show, although he was definitely surprised that the bees didn’t make more of a fuss during the slaughter at the Geronimo hive (actually, I was surprised about this too.) I think it put his mind at ease a bit about working his bees in the future.
In closing, I received a flier on a Beekeeping Seminar being given by one of the contributors to my bee knowledge (some of which is on this blog), Doug Ladd. It’s going to be given in Buckingham County on June 19 of this year and will include a lot of good stuff for a new (and experienced) beekeeper, including working hives and other items.You need to RSVP by June 9th – I have included the official flier here : Buckingham County basic beekeeping II seminar .
The Richmond Beekeeper’s Association had their meeting last night, focusing on supering your bee hives and extracting the honey that your bees build out. An experienced beekeeper named Bob gave most of the presentation, however Kenny from ERBA also contributed. It was a very good discussion, although I almost passed out due to allergies or something. I honestly do not know what the heck was going on with me. I played 11 holes of golf prior to the meeting and thought I was coming down with the plague. Fortunately, I seemed to have lived through last night and feel ok this morning (I took an allergy pill last night.) The older I get, the more my body acts up on me.
At any rate, I forced myself to take a few notes for future reference. There was a general discussion of equipment, starting with the Honey Extractor (I had hoped that there would be a discussion of ‘How to Harvest Honey without an Extractor‘, as I am not in the mood to make that investment right now.) The primary tidbits that I picked up on the Extractor were to always purchase Stainless Steel and it doesn’t take long to need more then a 2 Frame Extractor.
The talk then went on to Capping Knife. Bob was an advocate of an electric knife that could be operated (tuned on/off) with a foot petal. Issues apparently arise when you use one of these things as they can burn the honey when they get too hot. Bob dealt with this via a foot pedal, which he would use judiciously (only turning it on for brief periods while working, instead of keeping it on all of the time.) As to this, Kenny advised he never used the knife and just used the scratcher (or some thing that looks like one of those metal combs that kids put in their back pockets.)
Regardless of the tools, the first step in the process is to get the Honey Super on your hive. In the Richmond, Virginia area, you want to make sure that you have at least one honey super on your hives by April 15 (although some of the folks claimed April 1 was the day this year, due to the unseasonably warm weather this year.) The primary flow, as mentioned in a previous post, starts in early May.
Once the bees have filled the super up with honey (you want to have a frame that is mostly capped), you remove it from the hive (probably replacing it with another super). I have definitely written on this blog about possibly leaving the supers on until the Fall. Folks at the Richmond Beekeeper’s meeting were not in favor of this for two reasons. One, you want to extract honey when it is hot. July and August are perfect. Honey runs/drips well in this temperature. Two, if we have a dearth (or maybe they were saying that anytime this can happen), the bees will start to eat into their stores, removing the honey from the supers. This second problem is a bit of a mystery. If you take their food that they would have otherwise eaten, won’t they go hungry? I guess those people just feed the bees sugar syrup for the rest of the Summer/Fall. At any rate, if you subscribe to this view, you want to get those supers off by the end of June (when the nectar flow in the Richmond, Va area will be over.)
When you go to get the honey supers, it is important to get the bees out of the supers. Bob mentioned things like ‘Bee Off’ or ‘Bee Away’ or something like that. Basically, these items smell so badly that the bees leave the honey. Heh. I am pretty sure you will not catch me using something like that. Fortunately, Kenny mentioned that he just smokes the padoodle out of his honey supers (sending most bees back into the main hive), then he shakes his frames (shaking the bees back into main hive) and uses a brush for the last few still there. Someone mentioned a blower, which I may investigate down the road (in that distant future when I actually get some harvested honey…)
Once the bees are out of the Super, you need to store it somewhere while you finish working the bees or getting other supers. The key is to have a top and bottom that are bee tight. Otherwise, a bunch of bees will run over and steal the honey out of your super while it is on the truck.
Now that you have your honey, you return to the honey extracting setup and go to work. The first thing is to decap the honey (using the electric knife or hippie comb) over a plastic tub which can catch the stray honey and cappings. Once all of the caps are off, place the frame into the extractor and give her a whirl. The honey will drip out and flow into a bucket (that you need to have setup with a double strainer (rough, then fine). This is the Stage 1 honey. Folks like Kenny (and probably like me, once I get some honey to try) will let this honey sit for a day or two before pouring it into bottles. This lets the last of the wax and bee particles float to the top. But, Bob actually strains it one last time, through a terry cloth or something. This really pulls out all of the tidbits.
Once you are done bottling, you want to clean up very well. Otherwise, according to the folks at the meeting, you will have a Small Hive Beetle paradise and a real mess the next time you extract.
That pretty much sums up the notes on Honey Extraction. The final tidbit that I picked up (by picked up, I mean noted to consider later, as I do not know very much about bees – not even enough to accurately judge the information (usually conflicting!) that I hear from various beekeepers around the area and on the net!), was that a lot of those beekeepers use an ‘Illinois Super’ (this is what I call a honey super) and a Deep for their hives. Basically, I would have already filled that up on both of my hives (I use two Deep’s.) I am a bit leary of this approach, as I think that Tom advised two Deep’s. I might try this setup on one of my new Nuc’s and watch it over the next few years.
The East Richmond Beekeeper’s Association had their May meeting this evening and the focus was splitting beehives, creating Nuc’s and tidbits about swarming and other beehavior. Kenny was the focus, which is always good as he has a ton of experience. It would have been good to have Tom here, too, as he is probably doing tons of splits and Nuc’s at this exact moment (which is probably why he couldn’t make it!)
Kenny defines ‘splits’ literally, which makes sense although I had never looked at it this way. For him, a split is taking two deeps and creating a hive from each one. Interestingly enough (or maybe it is sadly enough), I have only just recently had a queen start laying in the top Deep. Clearly, this is normal behavior for a strong hive. Regardless, when you have brood and nurse bees in both boxes, it creates an ideal scenario for a ‘split’. Kenny’s method is to find the queen in the upper Deep and move her back to the lower Deep. Then, take the upper deep and make a new hive out of it. The whole concept of ‘finding the queen’ is not something that I do casually. In fact, I would have to say that I do it ‘by accident’ currently. I have been advised that this will change as I become more experienced.
But, with this low likelihood of finding a queen, I am more likely to spin Kenny’s strategy a bit by simply locating frames of eggs and making sure that both Deeps have at least one frame of eggs. This way, whichever box is missing the queen will have the proper tools to build their own queen. The key here is to check back in five to seven days for a queen cell (or two.) Bee math says that the egg will turn into a larvae on Day 3/4, be capped on Day 7/8 and hatch out as a queen on day 16/17. Then, the young gal apparently meanders around the hive getting her legs under her (and probably looking to kill any other queens that have not emerged from their cells) for about 5 days before she goes out on the town to find a lover. 26 days after the split, I should be seeing eggs. But, Kenny mentioned that he has seen it happen on Day 35, so it is best not to give up hope immediately (I’m guessing that I would freak out by Day 29 anyway!) I think you can probably test the theory by dropping another frame of eggs (from another hive) into the new split and see if they try to raise another queen (in which case I might want to follow up with a frame of capped brood if I can spare it, just to keep the population of nurse bees strong.)
Kenny also mentioned the idea of moving the hives a long distance. But, as Michael Bush (online) and Doug Ladd (occasional blog reader) have advised, you can move them a short distance and still have high rates of success. I can move them a long distance to my family farm in Charles City or two one of my friend’s farms, but I kind of doubt that I will on the first tries (this year or next.) I am fairly certain that I will try Doug’s method my first time.
Kenny also demonstrated a home made Cloakboard, another method of doing a split and/or raising queens which involves keeping the hives together. I am still in the research mode for raising queens and have no opinion on this method at the moment.
One of the most educational bits (for me) tonight was the advice on how to check for swarm cells (I am keeping an eye on the Geronimo hive for a possible swarm – it is unlikely, as I believe the queen is young, but I have learned my lesson on banking on my expectations!) To begin with, he advised that most swarm cells are made in the upper Deep. This was brand new information to me. To check for them, you do not have to invade the hive with a full inspection. You simply have to lift the top Deep and place it on its side where you can look for the cells with a good vantage point (they should be on the bottom on the upper deep.) I am probably going to do this on the coming weekend, just to see how it goes. I like this idea as I really have no need to break the frames of this strong hive up anymore.
There was also a lot of talk about swarms. Wade had found nine swarm cells in one of his two hives. Kenny had apparently been catching swarms all week. Anne had even just picked up a swarm a week or so ago and put it in a top bar hive (where it had already drawn out 12 frames!!!!) I actually finished my first swarm trap (a 6 frame, custom made Nuc that I could hang at 8′) this very evening. I am going to put it in Charles City this weekend (or maybe put it over at 1699 on Thursday if I can get another one built tomorrow night.) I hope to post back more on this experiment in the future.
Finally, I met two folks that have visited my blog at the meeting tonight. One, David, lives up the road and is looking to get into bees. He has apparently spoken to Tom (I’m thinking Tom’s list must be a hundred long!) In addition, I met Doug Ladd and his folks. I think his folks come to the meeting regularly, but Doug belongs to another club down to the west of Richmond. The beekeeping community is getting larger and it’s a blast chewing the fat about bees.
For the purposes of recording observations, we are going through a bit of a cool spell now, with at least a few more days in the low-70’s. The main note here is that they are calling for storms in a couple of days. We are definitely getting dry now and I do not believe that the nectar of anything but trees and well established shrubs will last to any great degree if we do not get rain in the next week (of course, I am mainly concerned about my garden and plants, but I want the bees to have a full plate too!)
Today was my 2 week checkpoint for all three hives. I actually had hoped that I would be talking about my two new Nuc’s, but that will probably have to wait for another week or so. Some Nuc’s are ready, but I am 14th on the list, so I have a bit more to go. I sent several folks to Tom after I put my order in, so he must have a really long list (I was 14th and put my order in last Fall!) I didn’t put my Pop’s order in until early December, so I am not sure where that is on the list. I will probably give him one of my Nuc’s and hope Tom is able to get the third one done later.
As to my hives, things appear good, although not as good as I expected in some cases.
Geronimo Hive Found larvae and pupa
Did not find queen
The bottom deep was wall to wall capped brood (the outside frames were nectar/honey)
Top deep had three frames of capped brood.
Nothing in the honey super (not even working the foundation yet)
Three queen cups found on the northernmost frame of the bottom deep
I was surprised to find the queen laying in the top Deep here. At first, I wondered if I was going to be doing a reversal after all, but found a ton of capped brood in the bottom, so I left it be. I am also surprised to see that no work has been done on the honey super. It is all foundation. I am going to research this a bit. They have drawn out all of the top deep, so they have no where else to go. I hope to see some work in that Super at my next check.
Since this queen is laying in the top Deep now, I will still probably do a full inspection two weeks from now, just to see what is going on.
Albo Hive No queen found.
Found larva.
The Albo hive is coming along, although not as strong as the Geronimo hive. They still have 2 and a half frames of foundation (one of them was because I took one of their honey frames for the swarm) in the top deep. The queen was laying in the bottom deep and there appears to be a ton of bees on the way.
The main problem with this hive is that they (once again) built up a ton of burr comb between the top and bottom deeps. Tons of it, full of honey or nectar. This is the second time that I have had to scrape off the stuff. I wish they would spend their efforts building out the final comb in the upper deep and the comb in the honey super.
Westover Hive No queen found.
Found larva and tons of capped brood.
This hive is really something else. To begin with, the bees are blacker then my established hive. All of them. I had a friend come over and look at all of the hives yesterday and he even commented on it. They are really black. But, they are also hard workers. The entire bottom deep was either fully drawn out or 75% drawn out. One frame still had some work that needed to be done on it. I would guess that 6 or 7 frames had the typical brood pattern with honey above it. One frame was solid capped brood. She may be an old gal, but she is really going to town on the egg laying.
As to the upper deep, they had only done a bit of work on two of the frames. It was really not much at all. I wonder if they slowed down the wax build up because I did not fill the feeder for the past few days (I like it to be empty when I do an inspection)? Well, we shall see as I filled her up again this time.
One final cool item was that I believe that I saw the first orientation flight that I have noticed at this hive today. A bunch of the bees were certainly flying around in front of the hive and no fighting was going on. Due to the strength of this hive, I removed the entrance reducer and let them go. They are a strong bunch. I might do a split off of this crew if things work out right.
I was working in my yard today and a neighbor from about a half-mile down the road came driving up, saying he had a bee hive in his garage! He mumbled something about insulation, but I dismissed it and hopped into my car to go have a look. When we got there, I could see that he was doing some renovation on the building. He moved to a piece of wall and pointed at it, ‘They’re in there!’
I looked around and could not see a single bee in the air. Then I looked at the wall panel quizzically. Looking at me like I’m an idiot, my neighbor pulls back the wall panel and then points, before rushing back a couple of dozen yards. I moved up and looked, and it was nest of about 10 bumble bees…. Oh well. I thanked him anyway. I would rather he call me to have a look, as opposed to just killing anything that looks like a bee to him.
On my bee front, the bees are really working hard. The Geronimo hive has a continual inflight of 5 to 10 bees landing and taking off every couple of seconds. They are rolling in and out. The Albo hive has a lot of activity, but probably at about half that of the Geronimo hive. The Westover Hive only has a few bees coming and going, but they are still in build up. Every bee that I see is a bee that I moved from Charles City County. There’s a slight chance that some new bees will be out of their cells by next weekend (21 days), which I am guessing will relieve the ‘old’ nurse bees to do what they were made to do at their age (forage!)
Finally, the bees are sucking up water all over the place. Every rooting or seedling that I water ends up with a couple of bees landing on the wet potting soil and sucking down the water. I am guessing this is due to the heat and a general need for water.
With the recent disappointments of slow build up in my established hives, today was a great boon in my first ‘real’ inspection of the Westover Hive. I actually found eggs and they were working on their seventh frame already!
A week-and-a-half ago, I captured my first swarm at Westover Plantation. This hive I am calling the Westover Hive. It is a new experience for me in more ways then one. To begin with, this swarm was a feral swarm, so no breeding for gentleness has been done. I can observe them from a foot away with no worries, but both inspections have been a bit hairy. Some folks recommend requeening a swarm (with a queen from a proven breeder of hardy, gentle bees), but I am leaning towards letting them be (unless I take a lot of hits from them over the Summer!) The big bonus of a feral hive, in my mind, is that these bees have been making it in the wilds without the bumbling hand of a beekeeper. No chemicals. No sugar dustings. No screened bottom boards. No feeding during tough times. Even so, they have survived mites, wax moths and a whole slew of other things. They not only survived, but they did so well over this past (rough) winter that they thought a swarm would be a wise move! I have to believe that this gene pool is a boon, not something to toss because of a couple of stings.
Westover Hive Eye-balling Me
After I got them back to Varina, I tried to follow the generally accepted practices and put syrup on them by day 2 and was waiting for this past weekend to check for eggs. Unfortunately, it was very windy and intermittently cloudy. Folks say bees get cranky in these conditions and these bees definitely didn’t like it when I pulled the first frame. They were so agitated that I simply put that frame back and left them be. I received no stings, so we are still in the testing phase. Hopefully, they will calm down on a better day (plus, bees might be overly anxious when they are trying to build up a new hive and some joker keeps poking around in their new home.)
So, we were getting out to 10 days since I picked them up and I had not done an official inspection. Why is this a concern? When you get a swarm, you really do not know if you have a queen or not. Plus, their cranky nature could be another clue that the queen was missing (I’ve read where folks say that bees become very agitated when they do not have a queen.) I needed to confirm this. So, today was the day. It was very sunny, but equally windy. There was nothing for it, so I put on the full stormtrooper suit and went at it. I decided not to use smoke, as this can set them back a bit.
A few were still taking syrup, but I will probably not have to refill until late this weekend. I removed the top feeder from the hive and exposed the crew working on the frames. A good point was that no guards ran up to hamper me. But, there really were a million bees on those frames. Most of them were looking at me, lined up on the frames (a bad sign, or so I have been told.) I gritted my teeth and went onward.
At this point, a buzzing erupted right in my ear! I steeled myself for a sting, which did not occur. The buzzing was a weird, high-pitched whine and sputtered like my old outboard. Several times, I stopped and tried to look around my veil, to no avail. It was not until the end that I determined it was a daggone mosquito! The thing must have been sleeping in my veil before I put it on! Oh well…
I went to pull the first frame and, wouldn’t you know it, I got it about an inch up before I dropped it back in the hive! I have not fumbled with a frame since last year! These daggone gloves were making it difficult and now the entire hive was giving me a good loud buzz. Several were flying about, bouncing into my veil, but I was determined to move on. Fortunately, I was able to get the frame out (northernmost frame), examine it (nectar being cured and some stored pollen) before dropping it in the frame holder.
The next frame was the bonus frame. It was fully drawn with fresh wax (thus, it was as white as it gets.) Seeing eggs in these white cells is difficult for anyone. Add this to the fact that I seem to have difficulty seeing eggs at all, and I was a bit worried. But, I put it real close to my face and held it in the sun and, lo-and-behold, there were eggs! But, I was not done yet. Everyone talks about ‘laying workers’, which happens to queenless hives, when workers start laying useless eggs. But, the sure sign of this is that they drop several eggs in the same cell (I am not sure if the same worker lays multiple eggs or if different workers each lay one egg in the same cell.) So, I continued to scan. The whole frame had cells with a single egg in each. This was a GREAT sign!
So, the primary goal was attained. I had planned on looking at each frame, but there were a couple of squadrons buzzing around me at this point and I decided it was time to cut bait. I got the frames back into the hive and then did a count of the frames that actually had some drawn wax on them. Seven! Wow. These gals were really drawing out some comb! I wish my other hives worked with such diligence!
I decided to drop another deep on them and move on. At this point, I will probably move them to the 2 week schedule and only check the feeder more regularly.
Although the Richmond, Virginia area forecast called for rain most of the weekend, there were a couple of moments that allowed for a quick hive investigation. It was very windy, but at least the Sun was out. I actually opened both the Geronimo hive and the Albo hive, removed all frames but used no smoke. There were a couple of irritated bees, but most went back to work after cursing me out pretty good and buzzing in my face a bit.
Both hives had evidence of larvae, but I could see no eggs. I now see that waiting for a mid-afternoon inspection decreases the chance of seeing any eggs substantially for me. At this time, I do not have any direct Sun to look into the cells (the deciduous trees have leafed out, providing late afternoon shade, and do not give me a clear view into the cells. There seemed to be a million bees, but only a moderate amount of capped brood, compared to earlier.
This has me wondering if the Geronimo hive did swarm. The queen cell was clearly built up at this point and the end appeared to be torn off. After freaking out early on, I let them sit for 12 days or so. Maybe there was a small larvae in that cell when I looked back on the 12th. This is discouraging on two fronts: I may have lost a bunch of bees (reducing my honey gathers and wax builders) and I may have missed an opportunity to do a split.
Finally, and maybe a consequence of the above, neither hive has even touched my honey supers yet. They have not even started to draw out wax. I am a bit worried, because the top deeps are fully drawn out, but only about 50% full of capped honey. By the textbook, I should not have put the honey supers on until these were at least 70% full. Everyone was so hyped up about the flow this year that I may have jumped the gun on these supers. I am still on the fence about whether I will pull them or not.
The only bright side of this mess is that a colleague at work, who is also a beekeeper, recently contacted me. When I expressed my concerns to him, he did not seem too concerned (work was so busy that I only glanced at the email and will study it more carefully tomorrow). He said that he knew of other beekeepers that had slow build up until the end of April because they did not do any early feeding. I definitely did not feed my hives early on, as recommended by some, because I was worried they were honey bound (also the reason that I probably didn’t do a split and maybe the reason why the Geronimo hive swarmed.) But, hopefully this will mean that I will start to see real progress at my next check in a couple of weeks.
Finally, I only did a cursory check of the new Westover hive. The swarm seemed to have drawn out 5 frames, but I didn’t dig too deeply because they were a bit defensive. I can stand in front of the hive and watch them from a foot away, without causing any problems. But, opening them on a windy, partially cloudy, cool day seemed to be a bad idea. I decided to wait until a good warm day this week and take my lunch break to inspect for eggs. Regardless, the more that I read about a swarm, the more that I believe that I will replace that queen. The problem is that I want to keep the genetics going, if at all possible. Feral swarms receive no TLC and are, in my novice opinion, the best way to work towards an apiary that can make it on its own without my constant tinkering. I am leaning towards waiting for the flow to be over (letting them use all of the resources to the best of their ability) and then pinching the queen (assuming I can find the wiley little thing), allowing them to raise their own, young queen. The second choice would be to get a queen from a guy that advertised on Craig’s List from the Chesterfield or Powatan area earlier this year, claiming to have some local queens that had not been treated.
I am likely to have my hands full soon, when the two new Nuc’s arrive. So, who knows what will happen when things amp up around here.
