The Days Are Warming Up!

The days are warming up and it is time for the bees to go out forging. The trees are blooming and dandelions are out. I did hive inspections on all three hives. I’m happy with the results.

First hive that I inspected was the hive at Burr Farm. They seem to be doing really well, bringing in a lot of pollen of different colors, there were more than I expected. I saw larva, capped brood, and queen as well. Very happy with that result. The one thing that I am regretting is not getting the winter gear off of them since the weather here in CT has been getting warmer. I know I still have a lot to learn, especially with having a hive that is off of my property, but I am really happy helping a local farmer with pollination and possibly getting some honey collection.

I checked on the 2 remainder hives in my yard a couple of days after checking the Burr Farm hive. Hive 4 was booming, so many bees. I called for reinforcements, my husband, Jim, there were a lot of bees. I decided to do a split with them. A split is when you try to fake a swarm by moving bees from one hive into another. Ideally, you move the queen with the worker bees and the bees in the old hive will raise a new queen. I may order a new queen for the split. I will check in a few days to see if they are developing a new queen.

Hive 1, my survivor hive, the lonely queen last year, is still surviving. She has a small brood pattern. That is not as great as I wanted, but she is still there. I see larva and capped brood. I feel that I can move bees from Hive 4 to Hive 1. You, may want to know why I would do that? This queen bee has survived two winters with minimal bees. First winter for her, minimal bees, was approximately three bees in the spring last year. Introducing bees, as capped brood or as nurse bees don’t really care who their queen is. It would give a boost to the colony that is one need. I honestly haven’t done it enough to know for sure, but I did it once with a positive result. These tiny creatures never cease to amaze me.

Thank you for reading and bee Kind