Bee Inspection Today: Good News and Bad News

We began our inspection closest to the road. We hoped the kingdom of Bethesda would have a queen, but no dice. We saw no brood. I split the hive on April 30th so they should have a laying queen, but maybe she's just a slowpoke. We put in a frame of young brood from Wheeling in case they have no queen so they can rear one. Hopefully all will be well before long. They are going gangbusters with honey production. We took out two frames of capped honey to put in the freezer.

Not Doing a Good Job Keeping Track of Bee Management!

 I'm not doing a very good job keeping track of our bee management. I'll try to catch up.

April 30th: Larry and Chris were working on the chicken house so I worked the bees by myself. I did another split from Wheeling because that hive is still so strong. They should have a laying queen since it's been 24 days since the split. Next warm, sunny day I'll check. If they don't have a laying queen we'll add a frame with eggs.

May 12th: Bee check. Cleveland had lots of ants. We washed them out. Another hive had ants as well, but I can't remember which There was a lot of drone brood in Morgantown so we took some of it out and also added another box to discourage swarming. Everything looked pretty good. Lots of nectar and pollen coming in.

We did another check but I don't remember the date. We think that Cleveland swarmed since there seemed to be a lot fewer bees. But if that's the case they don't have a queen and need to rear another. So we'll need to keep watch and figure out what's going on there. 

I need to make sure I record data the same day as inspections because I can't remember what I had for breakfast, much less the detail about five hives. If I wait a few days I'm lost!

Naming the Hives to Make Management Easier: The Girls are Working Hard Bringing in the Gold!

Our five hives from left: Wheeling, Morgantown, Elkridge, Cleveland, Bethesda --
All of those cities are significant places from our family history.

I decided to name the bee hives after some of our favorite places to make it easier to record what's happening in each hive and keep it straight. I use the blog as my bee diary. I'll give the hives ABC names in an order that helps me identify them individually. For now they are Bethesda, Cleveland, Elkridge, Morgantown, and Wheeling.

• Bethesda is the recent split closest to the road (far right). No point checking it today because they are still a month away from having a laying queen. Bees are going in and out which is a good sign. 

First Campout of the Season with Two Happy Little Boys!

Shenandoah River State Park - View from the Overlook Trail

We took a quick camping trip on Monday with two of our youngest grandchildren who are five and eight. A lovely park close to home, Shenandoah River State Park, outside Front Royal, VA was the destination. One of the great blessing there? -- no cell or internet service!

Time for a Serious Bee Check of All the Hives!

But it won't happen today. I added another box to the hive farthest from the road. They are the mama hive of all the others and really needed it. We can't do anything else until we get more foundation for the boxes. I have some coming today, enough for two more boxes and I have more ordered from Dadant, but I'm not sure when that will come. It's a little frustrating that the local bee store had no frames made up and he wasn't sure when he was going to get to it. So we are doing the best we can at present. Hopefully on Wednesday we'll have the supplies we need and can add boxes to some of the other hives and do a queen check on the split we made six weeks ago. They should have a laying queen.