Author: The Moderator

Dakota18B hive opened. No smoke needed. cross comb problem looks much better. Bees are accepting the plastic foundation. Several emergency queen cells were found. No queen can be found in the hive. Assumption is that I must have accidentally killed the queen when I was repairing the cross comb problems. The colony is making a new queen. Oops, lets not ever do that again.

Wild17 hive opened. Used more smoke than usual. Hive is queen right. Removed old rubber bands. No swarm cells present. 3 empty frames left in 3 warre boxes. 1 old worker brood frame moved to WildCA18A.

WildCA18A hive opened. No smoke needed. New comb being built. Added 1 old worker brood frame from Wild17. Took empty bottom warre box and put into Dakota18A.

Dakota18A hive opened. No smoke needed. Added empty warre box from WildCA18A. Checkerboarded 2 boxes.

Dakota18B hive cross comb problem is extremely problematic. Black plastic foundation frames which were supposedly coated with wax appear to not be adequate. Any frames which were not yet built up were removed and re-coated with beeswax. Cross comb was removed and placed into new empty frames with rubber bands. Any empty comb was pushed flat into plastic foundation. This was a very time consuming and difficult operation.

Dakota18A hive was opened. Colony is queen right. All 3 warre boxes are full will install 4th warre box soon.

Wild17 hive opened. Bees are too aggressive to properly inspect hive.

WildCA18A hive not opened, normal entrance activity.

Wild17 was treated for mites. Using oxalic acid, 2 caps, 10 minutes.

Dakota18B hive inspection performed. Colony is rejecting the plastic foundation and building terrible cross comb. Capped brood present, larva present, eggs present. Colony is assumed to be queen right. Spent time trying to correct cross comb and flatten comb into plastic foundation frames. I was fairly aggressive with the hive.

I was notified of a swarm on campus and requested to remove immediately. Swarm was located in a small flower bush about 2 feet off the ground. Swarm was approximately 10 inches. Swarm was transported in a Nuc box with old frames. Swarm was placed in 3 Warre boxes. Bees are darker in color, slightly aggressive and spend considerable time cleaning. Started the colony with 1 frame of capped honey and 1 brood frame. Hive labeled WildCA18A.

Two bee packages were installed. These package are an Italian/Carniolan hybrid from ApisHive.com. The two new hives will be labeled Dakota18A and Dakota18B. Dakota18A was installed into 3 Warre boxes at Niagara Way. Dakota18B was installed on campus at Woody’s pond into 1 Langstroth deep brood box.

Wild17 hive was treated for mites, oxalic acid, 2 caps, 10 minutes.

Wild17 colony has survived and overwintered in 2 Warre boxes. Partial inspection looking for queen. The colony is queen right. Treated for mites, Oxcylic acid, 2 caps, 10 minutes. Added 1 Warre box. Added more sugar candy to the top board.

The commercial colony has disappeared. Last inspection was 4 weeks prior and while I did not find the queen, I did see capped brood and larva. The boxes are full of resources but no capped brood. There are dead bees in the bottom of the hive but not nearly enough to account for the entire colony. I think they just abandoned the hive. Maybe there was a nectar dearth.

Wild17 Colony is doing just fine and numbers look excellent.