The plastic hive overwintered with a large number of bees into the spring. There are brood frames present in both top and bottom boxes. Several frames of eggs present in both boxes. This hive is prime for a split. The number of bees was very high. Four frames of resources and brood were moved to the top of the 2stack NUC box. The queen was found and moved with the split. This leaves the plastic hive queenless but with a full frame of eggs and 2 full frames of brood along with several frames of resources.
The split hive from last week was inspected and no signs of a queen cell were found. The time without a queen has been 5 days. I would expect to have seen a queen cell. We may need to add a fresh frame of eggs. Otherwise the colony look very strong.
No other colonies were split as they really did not have enough to fill out the one deep box. The two remaining unsplit hives now both have a second deep brood box to grow into. The first picture below shows a good healthy colony but not really ready to split. The second deep box will help make splits a bit later in the spring.
The colony which had eggs in the super was finally fixed. All of the brood had hatched out and no new eggs were present due to the queen excluder which I placed on the hive a few weeks back. All bees in the upper super were shaken into the lower deep. The empty second deep was added.
A 2stack Nuc was taken to the campus. This has fully drawn frames and some resources. This will be for swarm catches or new splits.
Only 2 out of the 6 hies at Corona St. survived. All of the commercially purchased hives perished at various points throughout the late winter. All hives had good resources and did not show signs of starvation or any deadouts at the bottom of the hive. A small number of dead bees were present but not enough for a full hive and most likely were due to the extensive robing.
We split the two remaining wild colonies. Both colonies had extensive bees filling out both the top and bottom boxes. There were eggs and brood present in both top and bottom boxes. The white yellow was split and the queen went with the split. The yellow read was split and the queen went with the split (we think). Both boxes had eggs, pollen and resources to start again.
For some reason, wax moths hit the two unused Warre hives during the 2021 summer. I had these two hives sealed up with the intention of preventing any wax moth intrusion. My efforts to seal the hives was not successful. My guess is that the moths entered into cracks in the hive body interface. 8 Warre hive boxes were destroyed. All wax and moths were removed from the contaminated boxes. The boxes and frames were then blasted with flame to eliminate any remaining wax moth contamination.
There was one Warre hive which went into fall with a very strong colony. The hive was treated several times with Oxalic acid vapor. No honey was harvested on this colony. For some reason the hive was abandoned. No dead bees were seen in the hive and only a handful of bees were seen in the bottom of the hive. These dead bees would most likely be a result of the extensive robbing of the extensive unused honey stores and not the original colony.
A perfect looking hive but simply no bees. Perhaps the bees abandoned the hive.
All campus hives which were moved to Niagara Street were moved back to the Campus. The move went well and there are no issues with the bees. The 3 hives are extremely strong and extremely active.
Once the hives were moved, a split was performed. The queen stayed with the mother hive (020) and 3 frames of eggs and brood with nurse bees were moved to a new “Hoover” box.
This hive was successfully over-wintered at Niagara street. While the hive is small in numbers, the hive appears to be healthy. A quick inspection shows brood but a very small number of bees. The queen was not seen but signs of eggs are present. I am concerned that the queen was not seen as there are so few bees.
Hive 022 was opened, and the top box was examined for eggs. Eggs were found and the queen was captured and moved to the bottom box, below the Queen excluder. We will slowly get the brood out of the top box. The queen was very skinny and kept escaping the queen clip. Not sure if she will stay below the queen excluder.
Hive 021 was opened. Brood was found in the top deep box. The hive is extremely active and populated with bees. The sugar which was added in Feb is completely gone. I added more sugar to the top.
Hive 020 was opened. Small amounts of resources were still in some exterior frames. More sugar was added to the top. A surprising amount of dead bees are accumulating at the bottom of this hive. Not sure if this is normal behavior for this time of year. The other hives do not show this symptom.
Hive 007 was opened. The bees were a bit angry and low on numbers. There are still complete frames of honey resources in the top box. I did not examine the hive any further. This is by far the weakest colony we have.
After a full week of amazing warm weather, we are heading back towards snow and temperatures in the 10-20F. Upon quick inspections, these colonies are probably strong enough to weather this cold snap. However, I want to move these hives back to the campus and keeping them in the garage for a few days sequestered will be fine. We may take the bees back to campus mid week or wait until Saturday 03-12.
I have noticed that the activity of spring bees before any forage is available, is very unpleasant. These bees are active but have very little to do. I would relate their behavior as worse than Fall bees. Their temperament is aggressive even at a distance from the hive.
