Once again, I am behind schedule getting the blog updated. On April 3, Mark and I were in Caldwell, feeding the bees sugar water and making sure all was right with the hives. We are at the peak of the nectar flow for the spring and I can't recall ever seeing this many flowers all around Texas. Here are some flowers we noticed around our hives during this trip.
Click on photos to enlarge.
 |
| Phlox |
 |
| Scarlet beeblossom |
 |
| Scarlet beeblossom |
 |
| Primrose |
 |
| Blue Porterweed |
 |
| Dwarf spiderwart |
Most of our hives are exploding with new comb and the queens are very busy laying eggs. However, during this visit, we noticed that hive 04 didn't have much brood and had no eggs. We did a quick look and didn't find a queen. On top of that, we noticed the hive had created a queen cell. This was bad news. At this point, we would need to order a new queen to place in the hive to keep it healthy and growing.
 |
| A queen cell indicates our original queen has gone missing or died. |
Meanwhile, our hive 08 had completely filled their entire deep hive with new comb and needed a second deep hive added to keep the growth going. Because hive 04 had slowed down with the loss of the queen, we were able to remove the second deep hive from it and place it on hive 08.
 |
| Hive 08 with a second deep hive box added. |
We placed an order for a new Italian queen with Kelley Bees in Clarkson, Kentucky. Of all of the bee companies who sell queens, they were the company who could get us a queen the quickest, although she isn't scheduled to ship until April 28.
Comments
Post a Comment