25 April, 2010 - 2 pm

It was clear and windy and 85º at the bee yard.

Split Hive
Opened it up and found that there were a hundred or so bees. Didn't inspect or move any frames. I will do that next weekend. I removed the hive top feeder, seems the girls didn't use it much at all. I installed a migratory cover with a hole and put on a full feeder jar.

Swarm Hive
There were a lot of bees coming and going! I thought at first that the hive was being robbed, so I watched for a few minutes. Didn't see anything unusual so I opened up the hive. The bees haven't really moved up into the second hive body. There are bees scattered amongst the frames. Since I didn't have ten frames to put in the second hive body I put in the 7 that I had. When my hive bodies arrive I will replace it. I looked through a couple of frames and found eggs so I put everything back together. I also installed a fresh feeder jar today.

Photos of the Swarm hive

Alpha Hive
Entrance was busy, many bees bringing in pollen.
I opened it up and looked through a few frames. I found eggs, larva and capped brood. So I buttoned it up.

Beta Hive
There a few hundred bees flying around the front entrance area, looked like "happy flights". Looks like whole lot of bees hatched recently. I am hoping this hive doesn't swarm again this year. I checked the honey super and there are more bees in there this visit but none are storing any honey in it. I removed it and looked through a few frames in the top hive body. Found the queen on the fourth frame I was looking at and put it back. I found alot of eggs, larva and capped brood on the 3 frames I looked at. I need to do a more thorough inspection and see if the hive is storing too much honey in the hive bodies, I'll do that next weekend.

Photos and a movie of Beta hive

I put together a hive stand in my back yard. In May I will be getting a 3 pound package of bees and will put them in the back yard.

21 April, 2010 - 2 pm

It was 83º and breezy at the bee yard.

Swarm Hive
Looks like they have accepted the queen! There are eggs on 4 frames! The other 6 frames are being filled with nectar and pollen and or are under construction.

I am still feeding this hive. They have only consumed a 1/3 of the sugar water since Saturday, so it looks like they are bringing in plenty of food.

Since the bees have filled out the frames in the hive body I added another hive body.
The new hive body has frames with foundation. So the bees should get busy with building comb.

Beta Hive
Didn't bother the hive today. I'll check on them this Saturday.

Alpha Hive
I looked through this hive and found plenty of eggs/larva/capped brood. There is also quite a bit of capped honey and pollen. This hive is looking better with every visit. I will check on them in a week or so.

Split Hive
About 90% of the bees left the hive!!! But the queen and about 50 or so bees were left behind. The queen has been busy laying eggs throughout the 10 frames, theres just not enough workers/house bees to take care of things.

So I took one frame with eggs/larva/capped brood and bees from the Alpha hive and 2 frames of eggs/larva/capped brood and bees from the Swarm hive and put those in the Split hive. Hopefully this will get this hive going.

18 April, 2010 - 2 pm

It was about 85º and breezy at the bee yard.

I only did a short inspection of the Beta Hive.

I removed the honey super, and opened up the top hive body. I started looking through the frames starting from the north side of the hive body. The outer most frame was full of honey, one side was completely capped the other was about a third capped. The next frame had some drone brood and worker brood. And it was in various stages of development, some had eggs, larva and some were capped. The next frame was a brood frame with both sides filled with eggs/larva and capped brood, same for the next frame. I only looked at four frames and it looked good. I did find a capped supercedure cell. I removed it, because I found a large number of fresh eggs. So it seems the girls are unhappy with this three/four week old queen. To me the new queen is doing great. Next week there should be a few thousand new bees hatching.

Wednesday I will look through the Beta hive a little more.

Beta Hive Images

17 April, 2010 - 2:30 pm

It was about 85º and clear skies at the bee yard.

Swarm Hive
Replaced the empty feeder jar with a full one. There are a lot of bees coming and going. Quite a few of the bees are bringing in pollen.

Still need to give the hive more time with the queen(if shes still there).

Alpha & Beta hives
Didn't open the Alpha hive. I will take a look inside on 21 April, Wednesday and see whats happening. There are a few bees coming and going in the Alpha hive.

The bees from the Beta hive still haven't done anything with the honey super. They are busy coming and going. I am considering opening it tomorrow for a quick inspection.

Split hive
There are a lot of ants on the back of the hive going in and out of the top hive feeder box. Put down some insecticide with a watering can to deal with the ants. I'll take a look inside on 21 April.

14 April, 2010 - 9 am

74º, slightly breezy and sunny at the bee yard.

Swarm Hive
The queen was released and the cage was completely empty and clean.

The bees are busy capping honey, and building new comb. Hopefully the queen is alive and busy.

Split Hive
The queen was not released. The bees consumed about half of the queen candy then stopped. The bees were clinging to the area of the cage where the queen was located and appeared to be feeding her. I didn't see any bees biting the cage. I went ahead and removed the cork from the other end of the cage.

I will leave these hives alone till wednesday of next week, and then see if the queens have laid eggs. I will continue feeding the hives.

Alpha & Beta Hives
I did not disturb these hives. I just watched and observed the bees bringing in pollen. I will look in on them Friday or Saturday.

11 April, 2010 - 2 pm

It was about 80º and slightly breezy, clear skies at the bee yard.

Yesterday I forgot to put a feeder on the "split" hive. Today I borrowed a hive top feeder from a friend of mine and installed it and filled it up. It holds about 36 cups of sugar water.

Otherwise I didn't look through any of the other hives. I will put a telescoping cover and inner cover on the Beta hive as soon as I can.

10 April, 2010 - 11:30am

It was about 65º, clear skies and no wind at the bee yard.

Today the queens were deployed.

The swarm hive was checked through one more time for a queen and none was found. So a queen was setup in the middle of the hive. The feeder jar was full, buttoned up the hive. On Wednesday of next week I'll check to see if the queen was successfully released.

Alpha Hive

Used a few frames from the hive to make a split. The remaining new queen was installed in the split and that one will also need to be checked on Wednesday of next week.

Beta Hive

Checked the honey super and some of the bees are milling around in it but none are storing nectar. I do not want to disturb the hive until next weekend.

9 April, 2010 - 9:15 am

The queens arrived today. They are Cordovan Queens. I put a little water on the cage screens and put them in a dark area.

6 April, 2010 - 9:30am

It was about 75º, clear skies and no breeze.

Swarm Hive
The feeder jar has just over a cup of sugar water left.  That jar has been on there for two days now.  Seems the girls have found a better food source.  I am still treating the swarm hive as if its a package installation.  The bees cover 5 frames.  The hive frames are currently checkerboarded, and the bees are busy drawing comb on the foundation frames and busy repairing cleaning up the frames with comb.  So far I have not found a queen, eggs or larva.  The bees hive a very mild temperament as if there is a queen in the hive.  Every frame they occupy and are working on is filled with sugar/water, nectar and pollen.

Alpha & Beta Hives

I only observed the bees to check what food types they are bringing in, and I saw a lot of pollen inbound.  The bees are very busy coming and going and none of them bothered with me.

Here are some photos of the Swarm hive;

4 April, 2010 - 3:30pm

It was 84º, clear skies and no breeze at the bee yard.

Swarm Hive
My Dad and I looked through the hive just out of curiosity.  I did not see any eggs/larva or a queen, yet the bees, which cover four frames have remained and are VERY busy storing sugar water and pollen.

Alpha Hive
I thought I would look through the top box frames for swarm/supercedure cells and remove them in preparation for the new queen.  I found the the top middle frames are being used to store nectar and pollen.  The bees are also drawing comb in the top box frames.  I did not see any eggs/larva or a queen.

I removed the top hive body and started going through the lower hive body frames. The frames in the middle of the hive body had eggs!  While looking for more eggs and finding them, I found a queen!  Its good to see that the hive seems to have successfully requeened itself.


What I find interesting is that Alpha and Beta hives requeened themselves and the queens starting laying eggs within days of each other.

I still have two queens on the way.  So I am thinking of putting one queen in the swarm hive.  The other queen will be used for a split made from the Alpha hive.  Alpha hive should have plenty of frames of eggs/larva by the end of the week.

3 April, 2010 - 12 pm

It was 80º and partly cloudy, slightly breezy at the bee yard.

Today was the day to open up the swarm hive.  A friend of mine and fellow beekeeper, Gene went with me.   We found that the bees cover four frames.  Also found that the bees have been storing the sugar water mix and a lot of pollen.  Searched all frames and did not see any eggs or a queen.  Buttoned everything up and went over to check on the Alpha & Beta hives.

Alpha Hive

On the 31st of March I put a deep hive body that only had foundation.  Since that time the bees moved up from the bottom hive body and started drawing comb in the upper hive body in the middle 3 frames.  Looked for eggs,larva and didn't see any.

The bees are VERY busy bringing in nectar and pollen.  I checkerboarded the top hive body, to keep the bees busy and prep for the queen later this week.


Beta Hive

I was looking through the top hive body and found curing nectar and pollen everywhere.  And then I found a frame with eggs!!!  I believe its from a queen because its right smack in the middle bottom of the cells.  I found eggs on three frames!!!  So I put everything back in place and put a honey super on.

It looks like the hive has a queen!!


Since I have two queens arriving later this week I will now put one in the Alpha Hive and one in the Swarm Hive.  It that works out I will have three hives at the bee yard.  I am thinking of naming the swarm hive the Delta Hive.

2 April, 2010 - 10:30 am

It was around 60º this morning at the bee yard.

The swarm hive's feeder jar was empty so I replaced it with a full jar.  Tomorrow I will take a look in the swarm hive for signs of a queen.

I didn't inspect the Alpha & Beta Hives.  I really don't want to bother the girls too much since they don't have queens.