Month: April 2024

Moved the plastic hive to the Magnolia location. The activity at this hive is a bit low but this hive should still be viable with the original queen from the split. We will perform a full inspection this weekend.

The colony which was split on April 4th was opened and considered for a second split. This colony had 2 frames with fully capped queen cells. The colony is still fully packed with worker bees and is ready for a second split. One of the queen cell frames and 8 resource frames were moved to a new double stack NUC hive.

Original hive which was split on April 3rd was split a second time. The hive was opened and there are still 2 deeps full of working organized bees. Nectar collection is backfilling the brood chamber. 2 frames were identified with large emergency queen cells. One of the queen cell frames and 8 other resource frames were moved to a double stack NUC hive.

During the wind storm this hive was substantially moved and was almost tipped over. The ground tether was a success but almost failed. I also added an insulating layer to prevent wind and drafts from entering the bottom of the wire mesh floor.

The campus hive also shows a large number of bees, brood and resource stores. More than enough bees and resources for a single split. The colony was split once with the queen and moved to the Polk building island hive. The top honey super still contained large honey stored and was cleared of bees and taken home. The hive was split and left with the deep and one super for brood.

Next colony to be split is shown below. Again, packed full of bees and brood. Many frame of drone brood and flying drones. The queen went with the split.

Only 3 colonies survived winter. However the 3 colonies that survived were larger in size than any single colony that has ever overwintered successfully in the last 8 years of bee keeping. Each of these 3 colonies is packed full of bee and brood. Also each of these colonies is packed with drone brood. As a result, I decided to perform the splits now in early April. Pollen has been coming in since February and fruit trees are just now blossoming.

Each of the 3 colonies was split just one time. The original queen went with each split. We may perform other splits later in May.

Source split

Destination Split.