Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

The weather was perfect yesterday when Mark and I visited the bees at Doug and Linda's property in Caldwell, Texas.  I thought we had seen the peak of the flower season a week or two ago, but there are now more flowers throughout our part of Texas than earlier this season.  Click on photos to enlarge.

Louisiana Vetch (type of wild pea)

Aniseroot

Bee enjoying Antelope Horn (milkweed)

Each of the hives, except for hive 04, are really cranking out their work.  Hive 08 in particular has really impressed us by filling their second deep hive with comb, honey, brood and eggs.  We will need to add a medium super very soon, and this will be our first box of honey that we will keep for ourselves.  (I'm trying really hard not to count our chickens before hatching).  The other hives that are two deep are following right behind hive 08, so we will add medium supers to them in short time. 

Hives 01, 05, 06, 07 and 08 each have two deep hives now.
Hives 05, 06 and 08 are leading the pack, followed by 01 and 07.
Hive 02 and 03 are a little behind, but still doing well.

Mark and I saw either eggs or brood in each of the hives yesterday, except for hive 04.  Last week, we installed a new queen in hive 04, but during our visit yesterday, she was nowhere to be seen, nor where there eggs or brood.  We also noticed more small hive beetles than what we would hope to see, and the comb has been damaged significantly by their infestation and robber bees have made their way in from our other hives.  Too much time has gone by without a queen in this hive and the bees that remain are at least three weeks old or older, which means there will be no new generations to see the hive through. 

Hive 04 in bad shape.

Mark and I talked about bringing a couple of brood frames over from our other hives into hive 04 to help ramp the population once again, but we will not have a queen (we still have on order with Kelley Bees) for another two or more weeks.  We didn't want to sacrifice the other hives for taking such a small chance for success on hive 04, so we will let this hive die out and clean out the box to start over.

Mark was able to find a nuc for us to pick up from a nearby beekeeper on May 6.  The nuc will have a queen and four frames of brood and honey, so we can get started with a fresh colony.  They will not have the several weeks' head start on the spring honey flow that our other colonies have had, but we are very happy that we will be able to move forward with eight hives in total this season.