Author: The Moderator

The commercial hive is going strong still. All boxes have been built out with honey stores . 2 boxes are full of brood. Queen is laying.

The commercial hive has produced so many frames of honey I needed to remove some and give them more space to grow. 4 frames were removed and replaced with empty ones. We had a quick honey harvest.

The commercially sourced bee genetics are growing fast. The queen is laying. The bees have been bearding on the outside of the box. I added another Warre box.

The Wild17 Colony appears to be looking healthy. The queen is laying.

Both colonies have great entrance activity. The wild caught colony does have a very different behavior and is more aggressive.

A notice came through on nextdoor.com that a swarm was in someones front yard. I contacted the home owner and went over immediately. The swarm was hanging about 2 feet off the ground. The bees were clearly a wild strain being very black and smaller in color. The bees did not show any signs of aggressive behavior.

Bees were sourced from ToBeeOrNotToBee website. Bees were installed into a 3 warre hive box.

Checking on my only 2016 colony which was sourced from “Plan Bee”. This colony appears to have both absconded the hive and died off due to the recent cold weather. I will clean the hive out and seal up the frames for next years beekeeping.

Colony looks good. New comb has been built out and queen is laying eggs.

Colony was opened and inspected. Queen is laying eggs. Normal entrance activity.