Learning Beekeeping

Now that I set up the new outyard on higher ground Monday, it is time to split the home hives.

I’m at 2 home hives now that the 2 nucs are at the outyard. The home hives are getting big and can afford a split. They now have feed and should be good to go for making queens while i’m gone. I noticed they are almost done fixing the flood comb I gave them. So I gave them more after I pulled 5 frames each. These are summer splits and need to be bigger. 3-4 frames brood 1 resources so 5 frames not 3. I’ll check on them on Saturday if they are building cells. Queen check on 17AUG (25days).

In sad news, when I visited the flooded yard, the hive I thought survived, was dead. It was just robbers.

After the July 4 flood, I was able to recover 20 frames of drawn comb. Some with honey and bee bread in them. The goal is to save them from the inevitable toll of hive moth and small hive beetle damage. I’ve frozen 10 frames and installed 10 frames in 4 hives.

Today I saw the results. All the combs I saw had been recovered and reused. The queen had more space to lay and more cells to store honey in. So a success. However, on plastic foundation where only a part had been drawn out before the flood, mud had stuck to to the frame and they had not cleaned that off yet. That may be an issue with other flood damaged frames. I see 2 solutions: 1. soak and scrub the plastic then recoat or 2. say screw it and just paint wax over the dirt. I think option 2 is more practical.

The two nucs are now ready to transport to the outyard. They will need 10 frame bodies. The other 2 hives are at a size that I think I can split them this week. So I will take the nucs to the outyard, transfer them, then bring back the nuc bodies and split the remaining hives. That puts me at 4 hives, 2 nucs. They should recover by September to split again.

In other news, I saw a hive in the outyard with signs of life. Did the queen survive? Or is it all survivor foragers? Or a swarm move in? Could not inspect it.

San Gabriel River rose something like 37′ . My outyard, which I moved up in elevation since the last flood 15 years ago, was flooded by 6′. I lost all 6 hives, maybe 1/4 of my stored equipment, but I recovered 14 deep and medium bodies and frames. Neighbor says he has more of my boxes, so I hope not to lose much.

Here is the damage report I posted on Youtube