Learning Beekeeping

Of the 4 hives in the home yard, all of them needed splitting. I didn’t have much time, so I split 2 of them. The Blue hive has a non-standard Illinois super. It is my last one I haven’t cut down to a medium. I was just going to sell it. But it is on a deep and medium. However, the bees moved up into it over winter, so it is fully occupied. The deep became the honey super. So I rotated the Illinois to the bottom, medium then deep. I saw white wax and lots of reserves.

I split the other hives to give them more room and make 2 new hives. One in a full deep, the other in a deep nuc. I like the laying pattern I see.
The far left hive I didn’t have time to split, but I was able to add in some empty frames, and move the full frames to the top in a new deep. So I can split later.

So last September, the hives were too weak from drought to split. Not enough numbers or brood.
After Pennsic I took too long to get back to them and the July splits in the outyard died during the drought. The last swarm died as well from predator pressure, as I was left under the trap. Skunk most likely dwindled its numbers down. I’ll come back in 3 weeks.

I equalized the remaining 4 hives at the outyard yesterday. Fed 3 of them 2 gal of 1:1. One of them, a Corey queen, was really strong, 8 frames, I went ahead and split that. Used only 3 frames. I saw the queen on one of the frames, but never saw her again. The queenless hive retained the majority of the bees and the position. I also noted 6 extra deeps and tops and bottoms are available. I think I have 20 mediums for honeyflow this summer.

Home hives were all fed. All 4. The fifth looked week in November and was merged with a hive to retain the drawn comb and improve the odds. I used up the majority of my free wood to make 7 deeps, 1 medium, 7 lids, and 1 nuc box.

Pre Pennsic I was able to split 2 more hives in the outyard. Post Pennsic I was so wiped out and backlogged that I didn’t feed the outyard yet. Even the home yard got its first feeding today and the drought has been pressing. I did notice a week ago lots of bee traffic so something gave them hope. Likely some landscaping plant. Home yard now at 5 hives. Haven’t checked if they have a laying queen in them yet. I gave them their syrup at dusk and couldn’t open them up.

Headed for outyard tomorrow. Plan is to feed 12 galleons. Hopefully enough to get them healthy for September splits agian.

Visited outyard 3 days ago. The bloom is effectively over. Horsemint and Indian Blanket are done. There are sporadic blooms, but not groups of blooming flowers, and the fields are definitely brown.

The swarm trapped hive I set up by the trap is still small. Like 3 frames. I gave them 2gal of sugar syrup.

I did two walk away splits – one from the Corey queen hive, one from a mother hive split hive. 5 frames each. And each given 2gal sugar syrup. The donor hives given 2 gal sugar syrup.

The crop for the year looks poor. maybe 10# of horsemint honey. Not going to pull it. Not worth cleaning the extractor for that.

The two main hives, I did not split. As I was out of sugar syrup and time. I’ll split next trip, before Pennsic. The quantity of sugar syrup I have to mix is getting a bit much. I think I’ll need to move to a 55gal poly barrel with a giant oar.

I split in spring, now in July, and I will again in September. Count at outyard is 8. Home apiary is 2. I’ll split the homeyard this week. That should take me to 12 again, after a decade of low numbers. Then I’ll feed them all thru August and do another round of splitting in September.

Highly unusual, both the swarm trapped hives I had absconded, abandoning brood. Normally brood is a solid anchor to keep them there. In one case, I tried to straighten a crosscomb and it collapsed which is likely why they absconded. In the second case, I don’t know. Maybe rob out? Not likely.

As for the bloom…Horsemint is king but Indian Blanket holds on. I see surplus honey finally being produced in the production hive at the outyard.

In the home apiary, the blue hive has 5 frames of bees, but has chimney-ed the brood nest into the Dakota super above. I’m really ready to get rid of the last Dakota super. But not till after season, apparently. I was able to see the queen and mark her.

The red hive has 6 frames of bees, so another 2 weeks before I give her a super.

Horsemint is getting underway. I made it to the outyard today to move the 2nd swarm catch of the season. I got chiggars picking it up, so I’m reluctant to return the swarm box to the same location.

I checked on the hives out there. Found one hive with supercedure cells, I’m going to leave them in place and assume the bees know what they are doing. It is from a hive with the Corey mite resistant bees. So I’ll be at 1/4 genetics pretty fast.

Noticed the swarm trap that caught the first bees of the season had orphans in it and they were still at 20+. Enough to possibly fight off a new swarm.

The first swarm hive had abandoned their original comb and began building crosscomb. Very annoying.

Blue hive has a Dakota super on it, annoying me. The other dakotas have all been cut down to mediums, even the frames. The dakota has some honey, perhaps 3-5 lb or so. And some crappy looking drone patterns in the honey area. Thought at first I had a laying worker. I also removed the miller feeder. I really need to give them a pail feeder to regulate the syrup intake. Even put in a medium in between the deep and the dakota so I can remove that damn thing.

However, in the deep there are several full frames of brood on the way. Looks like Corey’s mite biter queen is laying away! However, they still have not built out 3 or so frames. I do not like my chances of making honey this year with that hive.

As for the red hive, it has 4-5 frames of bees and most brood is capped, so I expect them to grow 2 frames of bees per week. So June 4 they should be a full 10 frames. These bees are a split of the old hive, so I have no idea on mite resistance, but they were fairly gentle.

I noticed swarm trap #19 had caught a swarm near the creek. I’ve moved it to the truck after dark and will haul it to the outyard tomorrow. That will bring me up to 7 hives out there. If they don’t have brood already, I will steal some from one of the hives. That should keep them from absconding. I’ll throw on a boardman feeder, too, even though there is a honeyflow on. Swarms anchor better with food and brood. I’m likely putting it in a deep because I have lots of those after my big deep build.

Got to the beeyard today at noon. Blue skys 10mph breeze. Not to hot, nice. Saw Firewheel still in full bloom on roadsides and at outyard. Also saw the first of Horsemint blooming.

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And I also caught a swarm in one of my 3 traps. That swarm was immediately put into a medium and put next to the last nuc I made.

Saw the first Horsemint of season.

Home apiary had a nuc I made some weeks ago. I saw lots of traffic in front of it and feared it may have been a swarm about to emerge, so I immediately gearred up and moved it to a deep. However, they hadn’t even finished building out the 5 comb. So they are now moved, but a tad early. Gave them some wax foundation, and will check on them in a week.

Yesterday I visted the outyard. Clearly the Firewheel bloom is dominating the roadsides. The outyard itself doesn’t have much Firewheel, but the property across 278 does.

I checked on the 3 hives I put in queens. They have escaped the queen cage and are loose in the hive. The one that had not escaped yet, was the nuc that I couldn’t find the virgin queen. She never made it back from mating flight I guess. So I took off the electrical tape and will let her chew out.

I put 2gal feeders on the nuc I took from the mother hive and gave it another frame of brood from the initial nuc. Also gave 2 gal feed to the mother hive.