15 April, 2013, 10 am

While putting the package bees into the hive body found out the queen was dead.  One of the attendents was too but the others were fine.  The company that sold the bees is sending me a replacement queen!  Should be here in a couple of days.

Pic of a 2 pound package of bees with a queen. 

I went ahead and put a jar of sugar water on the hive.  Hopefully the new queen will arrive alive!

14 April, 2 PM, 2013

Picked up a 2 pound package of bees with a queen from a fellow beekeeper.

The weather today is rain, rain and more rain.  Hopefully tomorrow will be clear and the bees can be deployed.

Still don't have names for any of the colonies...

7 April 2013, 1:30 pm

Country Bees

The hive named hotel is not doing so well.  Opened up the hive today for the first time this year.  The top honey super was empty, no bees no drawn comb, but there were alot of roaches in and around the frames of this top super.  The next 2 supers had the 4 middle frames covered with bees but the brood pattens were spotty and no signs of new eggs or old eggs.  The bottom hive body has 6 frames covered in bees and spotty brood patterns.  There were drones scattered about on all frames that I checked.  I did not see new eggs or a queen.  I also did not find any queen/supercedure cells.  There was not much honey stored or pollen in any of the frames I examined.  I noticed that the bees were very very calm no matter what I did to the frames while examining them.  Also noticed that some of the bees were trembling or twitching as if poisoned or stunned.

The hive named India seems to be doing good.  The top honey super is full of honey!  Most is being capped!  I put another honey super on that one and left it alone.  I will inspect that one next weekend, hopefully.

Next weekend I will be picking up a 2 pound package of bees with a marked queen and putting them in a nuc box with the country bees.

2 Feb, 2013 3pm

At the country bees it was clear skies and about 62º.
Both hives appear to be very busy.

Each hive has 1 brood box, and 3 honey supers.  The top most honey super has a queen excluder.

2 "New" Hives at the Country Bee site

26 Jan 2013  6:30pm

Since the mid summer I have not had any bees.  Today my Dad and I went over to a local beekeeper's and picked up the two hives he was giving away.

We picked up the hives and drove them to the hive stand at my parents property.  Since it was after sunset, I opened up the hive entrances but I put some grass and vegatation at the entrance areas and left the bees

Bees

All the hives(backyard bees & country bees) have perished.  I will wait until next spring to get back into beekeeping.

Mike's Bees

Yesterday we harvested about 5 gallons of honey from Mike's bees.  Here are a few pictures...