Beginners – Page 2 – Walberg Heights Apiary Tales

Beekeeping Tip #401

Entering the 4th year of beekeeping, Bumblin’ Bee highly recommends the following tip from his personal experiences. Hopefully it will be the last tip on this subject.

If you need to split a hive, but also need to mow the yard, be sure to mow the yard first. DO NOT split the hive first, leaving one queenless (with queen cells), and the other (moved to the same yard), disrupted, disoriented, and disgruntled.

If you decide to do the above, when you return to mow, Bumblin’ recommends you wear a veil. No one likes to have a bee die an inch below their eye!

Honey Flow Is On

The bees are starting to store up honey. I added three more supers today. We now have a total of seven. Today inspections results …

Carny – Super is filling up and will need another one soon. I didn’t get into the brood box.

Middle – Super is nearly full but I didn’t add another one yet. This swarm hive with the virgin queen is still establishing itself and is not very populated. One frame had some larva and spotty drone brood. The other side of the frame had larva in a much better pattern. By next week we should we able to tell if it is worker brood or just more drones. I’m hoping the virgin queen just got off to a slow start.

Changing Weather, Changing Plans

The rainy weather forecasted for the week has mostly been at night, with partly cloudy and sunny days. I know I said previously that I wouldn’t be touching the hives for a couple of weeks but plans do change. I initially went out just to heft the Roman honey super to get a feel for how it was filling up. To my amazment there were hundreds of dead bees in front of the hive and they were stinking.