Category: Bee Keeping Journal

WildCA18A colony was opened one day after it had swarmed. Still good number of bees inside hive. Removed top empty box which had top bars. Found swarm cells in top 3 boxes. One frame of swarm cells moved to starter colony. If we get a virgin queen, I will re-queen the Wild17 genetics out of the bee yard.

Campus hives were inspected. Apis19A and Apis19B were opened and a quick inspection performed. Capped Brood in both hives. New comb being drawn very quickly. Both colonies are extremely calm and easy to manage at this point. No smoke needed.

A second swarm happened in my backyard the very next day. Wild17 colony decided to swarm just 24 hours after WildCA18A. The colony also went up into the exact same Juniper tree but thankfully a bit lower. This swarm was moved into a NUC box and then installed out at the campus on the berm. Multiple attempts to find the queen failed. I will re-queen this colony as soon as I can.

First swarm of the year was caught in my own backyard. WildCA18A colony decided to swarm in my backyard at approximately 10:00am. This despite me splitting them twice in the early spring. The swarm containing at least 10,000 bees went up into the air for about 15 minutes. Then slowly the swarm settled on a Juniper tree back about 50 feet from the hive.

Colony was removed from the tree and put into a Nuc box. The Nuc box was installed on the campus over at the full langstroth hive next to the pond. Queen was captured and put into cage for 24 hour sequestration.

Splits were started on April 14, 30 days prior. Brood was sourced from WildCA18A. Last check, we found virgin queens in both splits. Both virgin queens have mated and are now laying eggs. The colonies are now located at Niagara. These two colonies will be called WildCA1819A and WildCA1819B

Campus hives were inspected. Apis19A and Apis19B were opened and a quick inspection performed. Eggs and larva were seen. New comb being drawn very quickly. Both colonies are extremely calm and easy to manage at this point. No smoke needed.

WildCA18B split hive opened and inspected. Queen cell was indeed dead and not viable. Bees had chewed the cap partially off of the queen cell and inside was a dead queen. Currently this hive has been split across 2 nuc boxes with a queen excluder between. The queen excluder was removed making this 1 colony again across 2 stacked nuc boxes. No smoke needed. This colony has never grown very large. I suspect these 2 nuc boxes will be adequate for their long term needs.

Splits were left alone and not bothered. The queen should have had their mating flights across the last few nice warm days. I would have expected the mating flights to occur between May 2nd – May 6th. If not, they will not have another chance.

Swarm traps were inspected and baited with Swam commander.

WildCA18A (left) colony opened. This is by far my best wild colony. Every queen graft and split made this year has been from this colony. The genetics are extremely calm, very hygienic and good producers. Today was no different. Four out of the five boxes were filled with bees and brood, nectar and pollen. Almost no honey stores yet. I did not find any established queen cells. However, I did find some false queen cups. I would say they are not likely to swarm. I swapped one frame of eggs and larva with a capped brood frame from the starter colony. I hope the starter colony begins making some more queens.

Wild17 (right) as true to all previous inspections for the last two years have shown is plain mean and should be re-queened. I have given this hive ample chances to just blame the behavior on a “bad day” or “no resources”. I did not open this hive. My hope is to either re-queen or force them to swarm. They down right suck. I would like to re-queen with genetics from WildCA18A.

Checking on the WildCA18B double NUC split. The top box has an unhatched queen cell removed from the WildCA18A mother colony boxes. The queen cells is still unhatched and looks intact. I am concerned that the cell is unhatched this far along in the schedule. I will check on Sunday.

Baited the 3 swarm catchers located on the south side of campus with only lemon grass oil. I will bait with swarm lure this weekend. I have noticed scout activity over the past few weeks. I have also seen an increased activity from the wild hive trees.

Opened the two new package colonies, ApisCA19A and ApisCA19B. Both colonies had newly laid eggs and new comb is being drawn out. ApisCA19A is a much larger group of bees. ApisCA19B is a significantly smaller colony. I was able to find the queen in ApisCA19B. Filled sugar feeder.

ApisCA19A

ApisCA19B