Author: The Moderator

Checked on WildCA18A mother colony splits. Queen cells are being formed but not yet capped. Normal entrance activity from all splits and colonies.

Splits will be made from mother colony WildCA18A. The goal is to create several new colonies from my least aggressive, most productive and most hygienic colony. Also I would like to requeen the Wild17 colony which has become far too aggressive for my tastes.

Several capped brood frames and nectar pollen frames were taken from both the WildCA18A colony and the Wild17 colony. Two frames of larva were taken from WildCA18A mother colony and put into each of the splits.

Both splits were taken to the campus approximately 12 miles away to start new colonies.

Day 6 after larva were grafted. The queen cells should be capped at this point. However the queen cell contents look desiccated and not viable. It appears that I may not have given the colony enough ventilation during the recent abnormally high temperature.

Day 4 since larva were grafted. Isolated nurse bee colony appears to be accepting a couple of the grafts. Larva sourced from WildCA18A.

I had 3 successful 2018 overwinter colonies. WildCA18A colony has shown itself to be extremely gentle, productive and the most hygienic colony I have seen to date. They appear to have a good mite resistance. I would like to carry these genetics forward. Also possible re-queening Wild17 colony.

Pulled 1 frame of larva with 1-4 days old eggs and larva from WildCA18A. I grafted using a “Chinese grafting tool”, 8 larva of the correct size and shape into plastic queen cups. These queen cups had been previously polished out by nurse bees and should be more accepted.

This single grafting frame was placed into a starter colony box. The starter colony box was prepared the day prior with 2 frames of nurse bees and 2 frames of pollen and nectar from WildCA18A colony.

Removed 2 frames of capped brood and 2 frames of nectar and pollen from WildCA18A and isolated these bees without a queen. I will introduce grafts into starter colony tomorrow.

In Denver we just had our largest pressure drop ever recorded in the history of the state. The pressure dropped to 970 millibars. In less than 24 hours the temperature went from an enjoyable bee friendly 60F to a terrible 25F. This is what the difference looked like.

I installed the 15watt hive heaters in WildCA18A and Wild17 hives. Made sure quilt boxes were installed and bottom screen covers were in place.

We are getting closer to the point where I would think these colonies are certain to survive the remaining winter months. All 3 colonies, Wild17, WildCA18A, WildCA18B are alive.

WildCA18B was believed to bee queenless going into winter as no queen could be found and there were ZERO larva or eggs in late fall. However, eggs were now seen in WildCA18B which would indicate a queenright hive and a very conservative wild laying queen. Hive numbers look adequate but not excessive. About 2 frames of overwintered bees. Supplemental sugar board food supply looks good.

WildCA18A and WildCA18B look to have excellent numbers. Both colonies need more sugar board food supplies. Both colonies appear to have filled a Warre box each.

Dakota18B colony has completely absconded. Hive inspection up until now have shown a healthy but average sized colony. Hive was full of resources and not diseased. This represents the 3rd time in 2 years that a commercially sourced bee colony has for some reason just disappeared. There are a fair number of dead bees left in the bottom of the hive but not nearly enough to account for the entire hive. I have seen this exact same scenario 3 times previously. Hive body full of resources. Hive treated for mites with oxalic acid. Sometime in mid to late fall, entire colony just disappears.

WildCA18B colony inspected. No eggs can be found. All brood frames have been back filled with nectar. Queen cannot be found. Colony may be queen-less. However we are far too late in the season to re-queen. Will check in spring to find queen or eggs. Colony given a top sugar board and closed up.