May 9, 2009 - 10:30am

At the bee yard it was 88º, light breeze and partly cloudy.

Alpha Hive

At the entrance there was a lot of bees coming and going and a lot flying around in front of the hive, it was very busy.

Opened up the honey super and found that the girls are not doing anything in it! Removed it and started looking through the top hive body frames.

Found a lot of capped brood, some eggs and larva. So the queen is there somewhere...

Noticed that there were a lot of bees packed in the top hive body and the bottom hive body. Wish they would get busy in the honey super.

While looking through the frames for signs of the queen I found three frames( top hive body, outer two frames one side and two frames other side) full of honey / capped honey.

Put all the frames back in order.

Since the girls seem reluctant to go into the honey super, I removed the queen excluder.


Beta Hive

Activity at the entrance and front of hive was minimal. The were only a few bees coming and going and just four-six at most at the entrance area.

Opened up the honey super and there were no signs of activity. Removed the honey super to look through the top hive body frames.

There were significantly less bees in this top super than I have seen in the past. While looking through the frames I found some capped brood cells but not many like I was seeing from about a month ago. I didn't see any eggs, but I did see larva maturing.

In this top hive body four frames were filled with honey. Again its the outer frames that have the honey. Two frames have been completely filled and capped, the other two are filled with honey but only partially capped.

So I removed the top hive body and put it aside since I couldn't find signs of the queen or the queen.

I found some capped brood much like the top brood box. I couldn't see any eggs. The number of bees were also alot less than what I have seen in the past. I did find the queen but she looked alot smaller than a month ago.

For the last three weeks there was a massive buildup of bees, a decline in egg laying and now a significant decrease in the bee population. The beta hive appears to have swarmed.

I am hoping this new queen will get things going again and maybe I'll have some honey this year.