Combined Hives Today

I was hoping that I'd find a supersedure queen today but instead I found no eggs, brood or queen in the Catherine hive so I moved it over to combine with the Alexandra hive. I could have moved some brood over so they could make a queen but at the end of June, it's just too late in the season to essentially start over. The hive would never be ready for winter in time.

I used the newspaper method of combining the two hives by placing a single layer of  using newspaper between the two. This will allow time for them to integrate as they chew through the paper and prevent fighting. So now I have three deeps on one hive. The bottom one will eventually become empty and can be removed, or the bees will keep storing syrup in it and they'll head into winter with a ton of honey!

Catherine the Not-So Great Queen

Alexandra Hive Brood Pattern

The good news is that the Alexandra hive is drawing out the 2nd hive body and the queen is laying a great brood pattern up there - filling up the comb before they get the entire frame finished. Happy with their progress, I closed them up. No need to break the hive apart to check the lower box today.

Bees Hatching

I was surprised to find the bees in the Catherine hive had hardly drawn out any comb in their upper box even though it's been in place for three weeks. They haven't been taking much syrup either but they don't have anyplace to store it. Looking into the lower box, I was happy to find bees emerging right on schedule.

I began to notice how gentle these bees are acting, and didn't see eggs or larvae, and the bees were not chaining as I would pull up a frame. They're not acting 'queen-right'! Inspecting every frame, I found only spotty capped brood. No eggs. No larvae. And no Queen!

Supersedure Cell?

I did find a pair of empty swarm cells but Russian bees are known to have swarms cells handy that they never use. There was one supersedure cell that seems half built - or is it half dismantled? Hard to tell... I'll give the hive a couple of days to either cap the cell or finish removing it and that will tell me much.

Bees and Spotty Brood

This hive was progressing so well that I didn't bother looking for the queen since the last time I saw her when I put the 2nd hive body on three weeks ago. This has been a long enough period of time that they could have replaced her already but I didn't notice a virgin queen roaming around the hive even though they can be hard to spot. Thankfully, the other hive is coming along well. I just may have to move some brood over from the Alexandra hive so they may make a new queen if I am unable to find one already present.

Starting the hives so late in the year, and now this set back? Ugh! It's certainly going to increase the amount of 'Keep' in 'Beekeeping' to ensure the Catherine hive builds up strong for the coming winter!

Progress Report on the Second Week for New Hives

I anticipated that the Catherine hive would be far ahead of the Alexandra hive this week since they've had the second deep box on for seven days but they haven't begun to draw out the frames. They haven't been taking the syrup either, which tells me they're still storing it in the lower box.

The Alexandra hive has done a great job of drawing out eight frames but they've been sucking down the syrup like crazy to store it in the lower box. I added a second deep box today so plan to leave them alone for a couple weeks now to let them work on drawing comb without much interference.

We've had a week of off and on rain so the ants love the dry, dark space between the articulating cover and the inner covers. HINT: A good coating of cinnamon usually keeps them away as they don't like the strong scent. Leaving the articulating cover off during the day would encourage the ants to move along but I couldn't do that because of the rain. Now the hives smell like cinnamon buns and the bees don't mind it.

First Inspection of 2015

The bees have been busy taking just over a half gallon of syrup a day so have been busy bees! Checked in to ensure the queens were released and it's a good thing I did as the bees were busy building burr comb in the space where a frame is removed to accommodate the queen cage. Since it is after work and getting towards dusk, I placed the removed comb at the entrance of the hive so the bees could walk back in for the night.

Catherine Queen

The Catherine Queen is lovely and dark, but still rather small. She had already made her way out of the hive but I didn't bother looking for eggs just yet. (The light is bad this time of day to see them....)

Alexandra Queen

The Alexandra Queen needed a bit of assistance to get our of her cage and what a difference that makes in the disposition of a hive! The Alexandra hive was so docile I could have been in them with out gloves or veil, even when digging round to extract the burr comb. But the Catherine hive was a bit fiesty! Those bees are ready to defend their home and their queen. I'll leave them to do their thing and check in on them in a few days, hoping to find brood. I'll need to keep feeding them most of the summer until they build up a honey super full to get them through the winter, but they seem to be on their way!

New Hives for 2015

Newly installed hives

I'm surprised at how excited I am that the bees have finally arrived! The timing is later in the spring than I had hoped but I'm confident we'll be able to build up enough food stores through constant feeding till fall that they'll make it through the winter. I am able to provide each new hive with 5+ frames of comb already drawn out so that they're not starting completely from scratch!

They are Russian queens again with one very being dark and the other mostly dark, which is one characteristic I enjoy with the Russian bees.

Sugared bees

Since this is later in the season for installing bees, I am feeding fumagillin b for the first two gallons of syrup as a best practice against noseama.  I also took the precaution of sugaring for varroa mites, sifting 10X powdered sugar over the bees which allows for them to remove the mites as they clean off the sugar. They look like ghost-bees when covered with sugar. I had temporarily inserted a bottom board to check the amount of mites present but was hard pressed to find one. That's a good sign the bees came from strong hives.

I'll leave them to do their thing for a few days before checking to see if the queen has been released. I enjoyed watching them them as they got right down to taking orientation flights. I'm so glad to have bees back in the yard again!