We went out early this morning for our inspection because of the brutal heat. No way we want to be out there when the temp is pushing the upper 90s! Bee suits are hot, hot, hot! We were back in the house by 9:00 a.m. but both of us were sweating profusely and ready for a cool shower. Whew!
Our main objective was to see if we have queens, feed, and insert some hive beetle traps.
We should have checked the bees yesterday when the high temps were in the 70s. Today, while we were out there in the sun it was about 85 degrees. Whew! With canvas bee suits on, that makes for hot work! But sweating is good for you, right? So I'm not complaining.
I went out to take out the bottom board insert from the little hive in case we pick up a swarm. It's too hot to leave that in. I checked inside because there's been some activity, but there were only a few dozen bees and they are probably robbers cleaning out whatever stores were there.
We still hope to attract a swarm although it's getting late for that. But we'll see. I checked all the other hives to make sure they have enough room and they are all okay, so no need to add any boxes.
No ants, no wax moths -- that's good news.
In another week or two we'll check again to see if the three active hives are queen-right. We know one hive is. The other two are iffy. But they have lots of bees and they are busy.
Well, the bad news first. The swarm hive left. Hardly any bees -- probably all robbers. Still a little capped brood in a few frames but we expect that will result in nothing since there won't be any nurse bees to take care of it. Anya, the next hive, has a queen cell, probably from the frame of eggs and brood we put in last time, but the hive may already have had a queen since there was a little brood in another frame. So that hive is hopeful
Up and down. One minute things look great, the next, not so good! Here's how it's been going this season in the Camp Kreitzer apiary:
May 16th -- Just did a bee check. All well, except for ants, but not so many I'd call the hives infested. Will probably weed whack and put down diatomaceous earth around the stand legs. Busy, busy bees. None of the hives needs a new box yet, but the second box from the top on the middle hive was so heavy I couldn't lift it and Larry was out so I was on my own. Looks like we will definitely get some honey from that hive even though it's the new one. And if we can retrieve the swarm from our garage ceiling we will have four hives this season. That would be great!
I need to keep track of what we're doing with the bees so this will be my "notebook" entry so to speak.
We came out of the winter with one strong hive. To give us insurance for the season we bought a nuc and installed it in the bee yard on Monday, March 25th. The same day we split our big hive but couldn't find the queen so we didn't know which double box she was in, the original box which I'll call Alpha, or the split which I'll call Beta. We fed everybody and started waiting.
On the 29th we gave Beta another feeding because they were so inactive. On April 7th we added boxes to the nuc and to Alpha because they both had so many bees outside. In fact, we were afraid the nuc was getting ready to swarm.
Today, April 18th we did a check of all three hives. Beta had two queen cells at the bottom and brood so it's clear we moved the queen there when we did the split. She may be going to swarm anyway. We left the queen cells alone because if they swarm they'll need those queen cells to raise a new queen. We added some spearmint to our swarm box to hopefully catch a swarm, perhaps one from our own hives.
We added a box to the nuc because they have almost filled the top box with nectar. That makes three boxes on the nuc. There were lots of drone cells which we removed and fed to the chickens. There's plenty of brood and we took a frame with egg cells and gave it to Alpha. If they have a queen it won't hurt and if they don't, they can use the eggs to raise a new queen. We're asking the patrons of beekeepers for help.
I got my first sting of the season on the middle finger of my right hand. I never saw the bee. She must have been on my glove and stung me as I was taking it off. I hope it helps my arthritis!
We're off to a good start for the bee season. They've been all over our apple tree and this weather is great for pollen and nectar collecting.
I love spending time with my grandkids. Two of the local grandsons decided awhile back that they want to do "cooking day" with Grandma every week. So for the past month or so we meet weekly to learn cooking skills and enjoy the results. One of the big benefits is that it gets them away from the computer games. They bring their Ipads to do math tutoring with their grandfather (They're home schooled), but that's it. Bike riding, board and card games, and cooking are the fun for the day. They are becoming quite the little chefs.
