Spring Start

I did a complete check of the "girls" and all looked good, except #3 which I notices earlier this spring that it didn't make it through the winter. It did have lots of honey filled frames, and the other colonies are helping themselves to it. I was also lucky this year to see 4 of the 5 Queens this year. I couldn't find the Queen in #5 because of the amount of bees in this colony, there are lots. When I was moving old frames out of #4, I sent on aside because of the bees on it and was about to shake the bees off into the super and took a quick look. The Queen was on this frame and I didn't see her when I took it out. She moves quickly and I'm lucky she didn't walk off when I sent it down. She was gently returned to the colony.  All are strong and in a few day's I'll try to split #5 and restart #3, move some of the honey frames around and put on my honey supers for the season. The dandelions are starting and I'll keep an eye on when they die out to see if I can change out the honey supers to try and separate dandelion honey from regular field and wild flower honey. I also changed out 2 1/2 boxes of old frame and comb with new ones as they were not using them, I have several more in #5 to do and will change them out when I split it. Here is how things looked and I got pictures of three of the Queens. My battery expired, sorry.

A good looking frame, capped brood, pollen,
honey and larva.

Another good looking frame.

Lots going on in #2, lots of capped brood.

A look inside the top super.

You can see the Queen from #1.

Here is the Queen from #2.

The Queen from #4.

Coming Along

Since taking off the winter wraps, I've given them protein patties, 1 1/2 lts syrup, then 2 lts of syrup with medicine, and they look like they are coming along. I did lose one colony though, it looked a little weak when I took off the wrap and I was hoping it would come along, but it didn't. I checked inside and I didn't see any capped brood, larva or eggs anywhere, so I think not too long ago I lost the Queen. There was plenty of honey inside and some pollen cake but thing else, just a few workers left. I'll save what I can and use the the boxes for a split if I need too. Here is a little of what is happening right now.

Colony 1 & 2

Numbers 3 & 4. #3 didn't make it.

Numbers 5 & 6

Everyone coming and going with pollen.

Lots of activity, looking good. 

Looking In On The Girls

After a couple of weeks we thought it would be a good time to check up on the girls, it is very hot, 24 °C with a fell like temp of 29°C at 10:30 in the morning. The bees weren't to active, they were busy at the front of the hive, lined up pushing air in to help cool it down, and most of them were still home, not out getting more food. At least that is what it seemed. We didn't see the Queen this time but there were Larva in the new drawn out foundation and they cap the Larva at day 9 so we know she was still there, because it has been 18 days since our last inspection. At first I thought they filled the new super with honey like the previous one, but ReBecca thought it might be capped brood. I though honey because the capping's were yellow in color and ReBecca mentioned then it could be golden rod honey. When I scarped away some extra combs to clean things up a bit I looked and they were capped Pupa. This is great because the colony is growing like we wanted. Things are looking up.

Pushing air into the hive to cool it down.

Our new foundation, drawn out and filled with brood.

A broken cell with Pupa exposed, a small loss.

A large comb that gets in the way, needs to be cleaned up.

It left a little hole in the foundation, they'll fix it quickly.

Lots of bees, to hot for doing anything today.

Inspections

We have been keeping an eye on them a lot, we inspected them a few times to see if the Queen is there and on one of the inspections we saw eggs in the combs, which is a good thing because they are only in the egg stage for 3 days and this way we knew the Queen was there. We helped them along by feeding them a sugar water mix, two parts sugar to one part water, and they loved it. One day we added another super with new foundation and so they didn't have to work too hard to make wax we fed them more sugar water. As it turned out we fed them 6 times over the month for a total of 18 liters and as it turned out they drew the foundation out but with so much feed the make honey. It will stay there for them to have over winter. We put another super between the honey and the brood chamber, and will leave them alone for a while to give the time to build them out and hopefully let the Queen lay more eggs, building their numbers. During this last inspection we got to see the Queen and everything looked healthy, now time will tell.

Our Girls.

Looking good, brood hatching.

It's hard to see but the Queen is in the center of
the picture above half way.

The Queen in the center of the picture.