Nectar Flow in Full Swing
Our bees are really surprising us with their hard work! Yesterday, Mark and I spent the day at Doug and Linda's property, south of Caldwell, Texas. Most of our eight hives are working so fast that we are barely able to keep up.
Southeast Texas has had heavy storms and excessive rains for the past few weeks and yesterday morning, storms hit Caldwell once again, right before we ventured out the road to visit the bees. We waited until the storms cleared to head out. When we arrived at Doug and Linda's property, the warm sun was shining. However, with the ground as soggy as it was, we had to trek it down to the hives on foot. Mark and I made several trips from "base camp", where we parked the truck. We hiked through tall grass, under a barbed wire fence, past fire ant hills, while carrying our heavy tools, supplies (12 gallons of sugar water), and equipment. We made three trips each, just to get set up and ready to tend to the bees. It was a workout, but one well worth our effort. (Click on photos to enlarge).
Mark and I checked each hive and they were all doing very well, progressing along with honey and brood growth, except for hive 04. We expected hive 04 would be on its last leg, which it was, as our attempts at saving our queen these past two weeks have failed.
Hive 08 is actually doing too well, (if that is possible). The population has exploded so quickly that they are ready to swarm. During this visit, we found one queen cell with a large queen pupae (which we removed) and a couple of queen cups in the making. We know the original queen is still in place because we saw many new eggs. We added a medium super to the hive, as well as more sugar water in a top feeder. This will be last time we feed hive 08 sugar water, as the honey that is produced in the new medium super needs to be from the surrounding flowers. At this rate, we expect that we will be adding another medium super to hive 08 in just 6 days!
Hives 05, 06, and 07 are perfect. They weren't overpopulated, but just right. We added medium supers to them as well, with a bit of sugar water in each of their top feeders.
Hive 01 is stacked two deep. We didn't need to add a medium super yet to hive 01, as a few frames still need to be built out with comb. We will check on this hive in another week and see if it is time for a medium super to be added.
We added a deep hive to hive 03. This hive's is doing fine, it is just a little slower growing than the others.
Hive 02 is our slowest growing, but still growing. This is the hive with the Russian hybrid queen (all of our other queens are Italian queens). Mark and I talk about this Russian queen a lot. We aren't sure what to think. She is producing and the hive is growing, but it has been a long process. We happen to have an extra queen on order with Kelley Bees (we have learned to have a "safety net" queen on order) and we should receive her in the next few days. We have talked about replacing the Russian queen with this new Italian queen from Kelley Bees. We have some time to decide.
We removed the boxes for hive 04 to take home and clean up a little. There were just a handful of bees left in this hive, and likely they are just robber bees. We have a nuc with a new queen on order that we plan to pick up in five days and install. Mark and I hope this new colony will do well, even though they will have missed a few critical weeks of the spring honey flow.
Southeast Texas has had heavy storms and excessive rains for the past few weeks and yesterday morning, storms hit Caldwell once again, right before we ventured out the road to visit the bees. We waited until the storms cleared to head out. When we arrived at Doug and Linda's property, the warm sun was shining. However, with the ground as soggy as it was, we had to trek it down to the hives on foot. Mark and I made several trips from "base camp", where we parked the truck. We hiked through tall grass, under a barbed wire fence, past fire ant hills, while carrying our heavy tools, supplies (12 gallons of sugar water), and equipment. We made three trips each, just to get set up and ready to tend to the bees. It was a workout, but one well worth our effort. (Click on photos to enlarge).
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| Mark with our tools and equipment. Both of us had to hike 200 yards from the truck to the hives, three times, just to get ready to check on the hives. We had to do the same trip, once the hive inspection was complete. |
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| Dewberries are all along the perimeter of the pastures. We are excited to think that our bees helped to pollinate these very berries! |
Hive 08 is actually doing too well, (if that is possible). The population has exploded so quickly that they are ready to swarm. During this visit, we found one queen cell with a large queen pupae (which we removed) and a couple of queen cups in the making. We know the original queen is still in place because we saw many new eggs. We added a medium super to the hive, as well as more sugar water in a top feeder. This will be last time we feed hive 08 sugar water, as the honey that is produced in the new medium super needs to be from the surrounding flowers. At this rate, we expect that we will be adding another medium super to hive 08 in just 6 days!
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| Four of our hives are almost as tall as me. The two bottom deep hives, which are the taller boxes, store honey for the bees. The shorter third box is future honey for us. The top box that is open is the top feeder, where we place sugar water for the bees to use to produce the comb to hold the honey stores. |
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| Bees in the top sugar water feeder. We wonder why the manufacturer of this top hive feeder makes the opening so wide, which bees interpret as space to build comb. This is a problem because they add brood to this section, which we inadvertently harm during our inspections. |
We added a deep hive to hive 03. This hive's is doing fine, it is just a little slower growing than the others.
Hive 02 is our slowest growing, but still growing. This is the hive with the Russian hybrid queen (all of our other queens are Italian queens). Mark and I talk about this Russian queen a lot. We aren't sure what to think. She is producing and the hive is growing, but it has been a long process. We happen to have an extra queen on order with Kelley Bees (we have learned to have a "safety net" queen on order) and we should receive her in the next few days. We have talked about replacing the Russian queen with this new Italian queen from Kelley Bees. We have some time to decide.
We removed the boxes for hive 04 to take home and clean up a little. There were just a handful of bees left in this hive, and likely they are just robber bees. We have a nuc with a new queen on order that we plan to pick up in five days and install. Mark and I hope this new colony will do well, even though they will have missed a few critical weeks of the spring honey flow.
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| Our hives at the end of our work day. |
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