July 22, 2016 Bee Yard Visit

We had a great day checking in on the bees.  Click on photos to enlarge.

We started with hive 05 and found it in very good shape with beautiful frames filled with honey.  Below is a photo of a frame of honey from the deep hive in 05 (this is the bee’s honey, not ours to keep).

Hive 05 great honey stores.

We were missing our queen in hive 05 and had received a new queen to install.  In the photo below, we removed a frame in order to put the queen cage in its place.  To do this, we had to brush off the bees from the frame to keep them in the hive.  The frame we removed had comb built out, but no honey.  This made the process easy.

Hive 05 removing a frame to make space for the new queen and her cage.

We introduced the new queen (in her cage below) to her colony.   We then placed the cage between two frames, giving her a couple of days to be accepted and make her exit.

Hive 05 new queen introduction.

We checked on hive 01 and found a good deal of brood, although we did not see the queen, nor did we see any eggs.  We are concerned about this hive.

Hive 01 some brood.

Hive 01 some brood, but no new eggs or larvae.

Hive 02 did not have much brood and, as with hive 01, we did not see the queen.  Hive 02 seemed in worse shape than hive 01.  We will order a new queen for hive 02 and install her asap, in order to save what is left of the colony.

Hive 02, no queen or brood.

So far, the morning had not gone perfectly.  We had replaced one missing queen and then did not see queens in hives 01 and 02.  We were relieved when we saw our queen in hive 03. 

Hive 03 queen laying egg at the center of the photo.

Again, we were relieved when we saw the queen in hive 04.  This is our Buckfast queen, who has proven to be very hardworking.

Hive 04 queen marked with blue dot on her thorax.

The super in hive 06 (which stores our “take home” honey) looked great!  They have been filling the cells and capping the honey, and it looks amazing.

Hive 06 frame from the super with capped honey.

We also saw our queen in hive 06.  Again – relieved!

Hive 06 queen near bottom right.  She has a long abdomen
and is apricot in color.

Hive 07 looked wonderful.  It had tons of brood and the population was great.  We weren’t worried when we didn’t see the queen, as she must be there with this much brood in place. 

Good brood in hive 07.

Hive 07 also had great honey stores for the bees.

Beautiful honey for the bees to make it through the winter in hive 07.

Hive 08 is gorgeous.  We recently installed a new queen in this hive, once the colony had swarmed in the spring.  This queen is dynamite!   The population is improved so much and this is what saved the colony, no doubt.


Hive 08 with a ton of new bees ready to hatch.

It was very hot today in Texas, and so the bees stood on the landing board, facing toward the entrance, and fanned their wings hard to create ventilation through the hive. 

Bees on landing board, helping everyone to stay cool.

Overall, it was a good day in the bee yard, even though it started out rocky.  We will continue to try hard and keep the queens in place and happy.  It is the most important thing in beekeeping, and the hardest.