Ten Hives? Eleven? But Who's Counting?

Well, the honey side of the apiary continues to grow! Looks like all three of our second split hives from our stellar white queen have made new queens, so if you're counting, we now have 10 marked queens! But I mentioned having 11 in the title didn't I? Yep, so we had noticed a swarm in the pine tree on the teaching side of the apiary, but hadn't had the time or resources to capture it as it was 15+ feet off the ground on a thick, stumpy branch. Finally, on Sunday we decided it was time to do what we could to capture it and after 3 hours of using 2 brushes and a bucket on long poles, we finally felt like we had most of the bees in our hive body. Fingers crossed that that included a laying queen, but even if it didn't, we have plenty of queens to go around. From here on out our main tasks should be harvesting honey, checking and treating for Varroa mites, and bolstering our hives for the winter by distributing our wealth of resources amongst the hives!

You will notice we did some swapping of slightly weaker hives into nuc boxes and slightly stronger hives that had been in nuc boxes into full-sized hives. This is space management based on issues with not having enough drawn comb for all the hives to be full-sized.

7/9/2023
Sunday, Hot, Cloudy to Sunny, 80F
 
Swarm in Trap:

• Still some bees making wax, took out waxy frames, frame with a queen cell, and bees for other hives; some bees still there when left

Stand 1:
*Hive 9 – Swarm Caught this evening from pine tree*
               - did not see queen, but painstakingly moved most bees from high up in pine tree to box using a bucket and brushes on poles; used a lot of   
                  lure (lemongrass oil); bees older and grumpy; had been on tree at least 5 days
                - has one frame of brood and eggs from Hive 8
                - many bees on brood frame and surrounding frame
                - if no queen, will newspaper combine with Nuc 3
                - D1 = green
 
Nuc 2: White Queen

• Moved white queen from three 5-frame deep boxes into two 8-frame deeps
• Saw queen, good amount of bees and brood
• Added old flow super with spacer on top above queen excluder
• Will now call Hive 7: D1 = White, D2 = White, Queen Excluder, Old Flow Super, Spacer, Inner Cover, Outer Cover

 
Hive 5 – Yellow Queen Split w/ Dark Queen marked red

• Found queen and moved her into D1 with space to lay
• Removed several queen cells, one capped
• D2 has 5 foundation frames
• (D1 = White, D2 = Blue)

 
Hive 2 – Yellow Queen

• Didn’t go into hive
• Harvested 7 lbs of honey from 2 frames (17.5% water content is much higher than our 1st harvest which was 15.75%)
  
• (D1 = White, D2 = Blue, Queen Excluder, New Flow Hive Super)

 
Stand 2:
Nuc 3 – From White Queen Hive - new red queen

• When went back to catch swarm, found and marked queen red
• Queen was on medium frame with comb and brood present from tiny swarm from trap
• D1 = white, D2 = white, non-telescoping outer cover

 
Hive 1 – Previous White Queen Hive - new red queen

• Moved from two 8-frame deeps into two 5-frame nuc deeps
• Found and marked queen red
• Nuc 5: D1 = white, D2 = white, telescoping outer cover

Nuc 4 – From White Queen Hive – new red queen

• Found and marked queen red
•  D1 = White, D2 = white

 
Hive 4 – Swarm Hive w/ Honey-Colored Queen marked red

• From Original White Queen Split
• Almost no capped brood present
• No signs of disease other than lack of capped brood
• Eggs present, Saw queen
• D1 = green, D2 = white

 
Hive 3 – White Queen Split Combined with Original White Queen Nuc w/ Queen marked red

• Flipping east frames to west and west to east
• 4 frames brood D2
• Eggs present
• Looking good; only hive with good D1
• (D1 = White, D2 = White)

 
Stand 3:
Nuc 1 – From 2nd White Queen Split w/ Queen marked red

• Moved from two 5-frame nuc deeps into two 8-frame deeps
• Hive 8: (D1 = White, D2 = White)

 
Hive 6 – Yellow Queen Split w/ Queen marked red

• Moved from two 8-frame deeps into two 5-frame nuc deeps
• Nuc 6: (D1 = Green, D2 = White)

Next Check: Sunday, July 23rd, 2023 at the A2B2 Teaching Apiary next to the Project Grow Garden in the Campus Farm Area of Matthaei Botanical Gardens.

Plan:
1. Do mite checks on most hives and treat with FormicPro as needed.
2. Harvest more honey from the Flow Hives.
3. Continue to monitor and manage space issues and encourage hives to draw out comb on foundation frames.

If you would like to join the A2B2 Flow Hive Team or would like to know more about the Flow Hive in general, please contact Jen Haeger at [email protected].