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.

Cleveland had fewer bees than we would have liked. We took some queen cells out on May 11th and gave them to Morgantown which may have been a mistake, because we think they may have swarmed and they don't seem to have a queen at present. So we gave them some immature brood from Wheeling. We took out two frames of capped honey. They are producing well even if they have fewer bees. We don't seem to have an ant problem there any more.

Elkridge was loaded with bees but also with ants. Not Good. Larry washed off the inner cover and the lid and we killed as many as we could that were running all over the outside of the hive. Larry sprayed around the hives for ants. Hopefully that will reduce the problem. Elkridge is producing honey in abundance and had many frames nearly fully capped. In another week we'll definitely be taking some frames out for the freezer in preparation for the harvest at the end of July provided the ants don't eat it all.

Morgantown definitely has a laying queen, so maybe giving them queen cells wasn't such a bad move. That hive also has many frames of nearly fully capped honey, almost an entire box. No ants there either. 

Wheeling still has so many bees they are spilling out the door. We added another box. they are still the testiest of the hives. Their queen is a super layer. We could probably split again, but we'll wait on that and see what happens with the added box. Hopefully having more space will calm them down some. We used the smoker today and thankfully no stings.

To sum up, we have three queen right hives and two with no queens. But there is still plenty of time in the season to get them queen right. Hopefully when we check again in a week or ten days. Things will be looking up. And we have four honey heavy frames in the freezer.