Learning Beekeeping

Out for a walk and noticed the Chinese Privet was just blooming down by the local creek. Bees were working it hard. Good to see some nectar flowing. Mostly this spring has been a bust for beekeeping.
I haven’t checked any of my hives as I have to wait for the queens to mate. Maybe this week I’ll check some of the established hives.

Quick trip to the outyard to check. I left 2 galleons of feed on all the hives 2.5 weeks ago. Three of the 4 are really in rough shape. I didn’t see much bee bread or stores of honey/sugar.

One hive still had 1.5 g of feed on it, but didn’t take it for some reason

The best hive was at 10 frames and doing well. I found the queen and put her in a 3 frame split to the side. Then split the remaining hive in two, let them go queen-less for an hour and then gave them each a Corey Stevens queen. It will take a few days for the bees to chew thru the queen candy.
Each new split was given 2 gal of feed, save the original queen, who only got a quart jar as that was the only feeder I had left.

Yesterday, at the home yard, I split the queen-less hive in two and gave one a Corey queen and let the other keep the queen cells. It should take 2 weeks to hatch and a week or two to lay, but I get a free queen out of it.

The big hive that was beginning to make honey, I used all the 2nd level deep brood frames to make 2 new nucs. Using the last 2 Corey queens

All nucs now have laying queens, some have milkbrood. So I wasn’t able to see eggs. I need to get a flashlight or readers going forward.

The one nuc I thought I had my queen in originally, showed up with a marked queen. I realized the emergency egg frame I gave them 29APR, may have had the queen with it. So the donor hive is now queenless, crap. Well, maybe for the best, that nuc may not have had a queen at all.

So I split the swarming hive on 10APR, 3 splits, moved the queen into one of those. As of 26APR, one split is with eggs and brood. As of 29APR, they are still 3 without a eggs or brood. Assuming 4 days at the earliest I found sealed queen cells. It is 16 to hatch, so 12 days from 10APR is 22APR. Then a week for mating flight and laying. so 29 APR likely. But add in rain, 2-3 mating flights and it could be longer.

Went hunting last night at my friends farm. Wild boars were roaming in doing damage, I’m there to de-boarify the north field.

I had set up 3 swarm traps at this farm, one just last week on Wednesday. And lo and behold, the new one caught a swarm!

Note – no sign of Indian Blanket or Horsemint. Lockhart is in drought.

Made it to the outyard, all 4 hives were alive, no hive was pissy mad. Maybe last visit, the queenless hive was the issue. Since two hives were given queencells just in case, i didn’t go thru hives.

Hives had some small amount of nectar coming in. Noted the far left hive had built out 2 frames of a super. Nectar flow light, this feed is insurance. No Indian Blanket blooming, nor anything but pronghorn milkweed. I won’t speculate beyond that. I can hope for mesquite, can’t I?

Just fed. Big ones got 2g, small ones got 1g. Retired a UV damaged pail as they only seem to last a season. Deployed a black pail which should last 3-4 years. All 3 swarm traps empty.
Counted 7 deeps and estimated 7 mediums.

Note to self, found a tick on me after returning. Also, I added 1 more swarm trap to N Field at Lockhart lease. So that makes 3 at Lockhart, 3 at Liberty Hill, 4 at home, 2 on street for a total of 12. Average catch is 25% so maybe 3 this year..

On the drive out to Houston, I could see very little Indian Blanket this year vs last. Clearly the drought is affecting the region. I need to get to the outyard and feed, I think they will be hard pressed this year, but have a chance at the horsemint bloom if the rains come.

3 of the 4 hives are looking bad. Short on food. The old miracle hive was queenless and testy. The split I tried last time failed, but the miracle hive had swarm cells, so I gave them a couple of frames with cells. I do not have high hopes. I will need to come back with food next week. One hive was queenless had 1 galleon of feed left. 3 weeks old, but I split it amongst the 3 hives…it was all i could do. It was likely fermented, but hey, what else could I do. There were no honeyplants blooming. All I see is bluebonnets. No firewheel yet. Mesquite not blooming yet. Cactus no blooming. Dearth, which isn’t how it was in march.

I checked on the home yard yesterday. One split had eggs already, the other split still has queencells. Hmm… that seemed odd. But either way, they will be fine in within 10 days.

The blue hive had a surprise, a dozen swarm cells. She’s a gentle hive, I like her, so I made emergency splits — 4 of them. Due to the reverse I did earlier, the hive had a deep, which only had honey, a medium with some comb built out, and a Western/Illinois body. Which I’m trying to get rid of. And this made it worse! All the swarm cells were at the bottom of the western frames, attached to the wooden bottom bar. So I couldn’t simply cut them out. I found the queen, she seemed small, Put her on the left most split in a deep. That will solve the swarm issue, and then I pulled 6 frames with cells to make 2 more splits. And I found 2 cells that I could cut out. So I pulled 2 frames of bees from the far left hive. I gave all splits a honey frame from the donor hive.

Now I need to wait a month, and when all those splits are stable, steal back the western frames, and put them back in the western body. Take out the medium frames in the western, and put them in a medium and give them to the splits. Ack! Damn Western. Will rejoice when it is gone. The other 3 I retired or cut to mediums. Cutting the frames, which is the more valuable part, was laborious. Should have made them into swarm traps.

On swarm traps, I’m making one more to take me to 12. The season rapidly approaches. And I need to start selling off some of these hives to reduce home yard congestion. The 55% hive loss has affected Texas, I hear and I want these genetics out there.

Count of hives 9 hives, 5 splits

At my friends farm, I put up 2 swarm traps on the treeline last week. I have 4 at my house, 3 at the outyard, and 2 down by the creek. So I should be set to catch ~3-4 swarms this year.

Inventory count of unused gear:
Deeps- 8 at home – 6 at outyard
Mediums- 14 at home – 6? at outyard
Lids – 8 at home – 6? at outyard
Honey centrifuge – 1 at home – Vevor 4/8 frame

With 10 hives now, 6 may need 2 mediums, 4 1 medium. I should be good for the honeyflow. If I double my hive count, then I may have an issue. Or use deeps as honey supers which is fine.