Honey Time!

So the official Flow Team check was Sunday, but it was so beautiful on Saturday that I couldn't help going out and checking on our hives just in case the rain started early on Sunday.

Saturday:
Nuc: I moved the nuc into new equipment and maybe saw one egg and no queen, but the workers were acting like they had a queen, so I think maybe I just missed a newly mated virgin queen. We'll have to double check on that at our next visit.
(Nuc: D1 = White, D2 = White)

Hive 1: Our tallest hive with the older, white queen had eggs today, so I didn't disrupt them further.
(Hive 1: White Queen: D1 = White, D2 = Tan/Wood, D3 = Green, D4 = White)

Hive 2: Spotted our yellow queen today and everything else looked good, so didn't do anything more.
(Hive 2: Yellow Queen: D1 = White, D2 = White, D3 = White)

Hive 3: I saw eggs and that the newspaper combination appeared to have gone well. At least 3 of the Flow Frames were full of honey.
(Hive 3: White Queen Split Combined with White Queen Nuc: D1 = White, D2 = White, Queen Excluder, New Flow Super)

Hive 4: I saw tons of eggs, so gave this hive that was a caught swarm from the White Queen split another box of foundation.
(Hive 4: Swarm: D1 = Green, D2 = White, D3 = White)

Hive 5: Didn't get too far into this hive, just checked that they were okay on space. Last check we saw a lovely new dark-colored queen.
(Hive 5: Yellow Queen Split w/ Dark Queen: D1 = White, D2 = White)

Hive 6: This is definitely our problem hive. Though there were at least 3 Flow Frames filled with honey, these ladies were very defensive and had no eggs, young larvae, or signs of a queen. We did see two capped queen cells and several other old queen cells that were being broken down. It's possible that this hive has a virgin queen or has a virgin queen about to emerge. I should have given this hive a frame of eggs and brood from the Hive 2, but I didn't think of it until it was too late. This hive has a White Deep of Foundation on top of the Flow Super mainly for ventilation because they were bearding a lot.
(Hive 6: Queenless Yellow Queen Split: D1 = Green, Queen Excluder, Old Flow Hive Super, D2 = White)

Sunday:
Yesterday all our hard work finally paid off in a little more than 12lbs of honey harvested from just 4 Flow Hive frames! We would've harvested more, but got rained out, so next check we're bound to harvest more.

Hive 1: We ended up taking our white queen out of her hive and placing her in a new nuc (Nuc 2) because she had some open queen cells present and she's such a good queen we didn't want her to swarm on us.
(Hive 1: D1 = White, D2 = Wood, D3 = White + Nuc 2: White Queen Nuc: D1 = White, D2 = White)

Hive 4: There were plenty of eggs in the swarm hive, but they didn't need a third box, so we removed it.
(Hive 4: Swarm: D1 = Green, D2 = White)

We also set up two new hive stands and shifted the hives around a little bit. So now, facing North and going West (Closest to the Project Grow Garden) to East (Closest to Black Walnut Tree): Stand 1: Nuc 2 , Hive 5, Hive 2; Stand 2: Hive 1, Hive 4, Hive 3; Stand 3: Nuc 1, Hive 6

Finally, we placed the swarm traps in the far corners of the bee yard and put a little swarm lure (lemongrass oil) in them.

Plan for the next check:
1. Harvest more honey!
2. Check Nuc 1 and Hive 6 for queenrightness.
3. Fix Hive Stand 2 to be higher off ground.
4. Check all hives for space except Hive 1 which is in the process of requeening.

Next Check: Our next exciting check will be Saturday, June 17th, at 10:00am in the A2B2 Teaching Apiary at Matthaei Botanical Gardens next to the Project Grow Garden in the Campus Farm Area.
Hope you can bee there!

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].