Hungry, Thirsty Bees

The girls are enjoying the back yard this week. 

Here's one collecting water from the "pond" in Toby's mini garden.

Dandelions galore in the lawn! Look at this girl covered with pollen. She's no new-bee: see her tattered wings? She's been working hard for weeks.

That's why the supers are already stacking up. This hive is almost as tall as me!

Backup Plan

Uh oh!!

Not my pic but it's close... Found a swarm cell in hive #3 yesterday. Just one. I caught all the others but this one slipped by, probably because it was up a little on the side and not on the bottom of the frame.  Argh. Even after pulling those three brood frames out a couple of weeks back. I had to pull it out and make up a nuc on the spot: I used three frames of brood plus one more from Cam's hive and an empty frame.

So now I have five hives in the backyard! Probably three more than I need. If this new nuc produces a laying queen, I'll have to find a home for it. If it goes queenless, I'll just re-combine it back with the mother hive later. Any honey frames they produce can go in the bank. The main goal is to keep the big hive from swarming. Can't wait til swarm season is over! Filling up honey supers is way more fun than checking frame after frame and looking at all the queen cups.

Super!

Hard to believe, but it's time for honey supers already. The weather has been beautiful and sunny and flowers are bursting out all over the South Hill.

All three hives are thriving and that means I have to stay on top of them to prevent swarming.

Strategy for hive #3 was to donate three frames of brood to a friend for a nuc a couple of weeks ago. 

Now you can hardly even tell that anything is even missing! The boxes were heavy so it got a super today.

Hive #1 is the star right now: I put a super on three days ago and it's already almost full! Unbelievable. Second super went on today. I think the extra warm 70-80 degree temps had something to do with it. I also pulled a frame of brood out today for a nuc.

Hive #2 donated three frames of brood to a nuc today. I used a purchased queen who will be in her cage for a couple of days until her "stepdaughters" get used to her. I can use that nuc to re queen that hive later. That queen is the oldest of the three; she'll be two in August.