Nuc #4 in a Big Box

This is Nuc #4 - it's time to put these bees in a brood box.

Hive #5 - I did see two queen cells and some brood so that's a good sign. I'll check later for a queen. There are a lot of bees in this hive. This is the hive that's been queenless for a while and I took a frame from Nuc #3 that had eggs last week on the 19th. So they're doing what they're supposed to be doing - I sure hope I get a queen.

Splitting Hive #4

This afternoon Denton came over and helped me do a split on Hive #4. We took the second brood box off and it became Hive #6 - we think the queen is in this box but we never did find her in either and after we finished we decided she might be in the original brood box - when you don't find the queen - it's a quessing game. But there's definitely a queen.

And this frame had a couple of queen cells which were gently put back in place.
In Hive #4, we moved two frames up and put two empties in their place and the remainder of the frames in the top brood box were new. Hive #6 - we left all the frames as they were in the brood box and put an empty brood box with 8 new frames and two old in the second brood box. Then we put back the supers - two on Hive #6 and four on Hive #4.

My plans had been to split the Swarm Hive but decided instead to put an empty brood box on this hive. I like to have two brood boxes on my hives and splitting this hive would have left them with to much to do with the nectar flow ending soon. And we just put the six supers back on the hive.

It's always good to get another beekeepers opinion or hear what they're thinking - I wanted Denton to look at Hive #5 - this hive has evidently been queenless for a while now. So we took a frame from Nuc #3 which was full of eggs (which I did see today) and put in Hive #5 - we were sure not to get the queen (which we did see) and brushed off all the bees before changing around. I should have a queen cell or cells in about 5 days.

Nuc #1 looked good.

Nuc #4 is ready to be put in a big box (saw the queen) but decided to do that another day.

Every beekeeper is different and lots of information from Denton today. Denton said a day without getting stung by a bee is like a day without sunshine - I did get stung today! That's two for me this year - more than my normal.

Nuc in a Big Box

It's been several weeks since I added supers and checked on the bees. My plan was to get someone to help me and make a couple of splits but that just hasn't worked out - partly due to my schedule, the weather and I had to buy some supers before I could do anything.

So even though it was very overcast late this afternoon, I decided to get with the program and do what needed to be done!

Hive #4 - added an empty super - 2 brood boxes and 7 supers on this hive

Hive #5 and Nuc #1 - did a little switching around with some frames on those two but did not add a super - really needed to go down to the brood box but this was all I had time for today

Nuc #3 - put those bees in a brood box - they were out of space - I just took each frame and moved it into the brood box exactly as they were in the nuc box

Nuc #4 - left this nuc in the box but I did see the queen - they had one frame to fill up and I'll check them in another week

Swarm Hive - added another super - 1 brood box and 7 supers

Glad I got this done today - it's pouring rain now and we're supposed to get showers off and on all weekend.

Caterpillars

Caterpillars in my garden.

They're eating machines.

May Flowers