Finally the Sun is Out!

It’s June 4th and the sun is finally shining here! With the weather being so nice, I thought I would stop by the hives again and see what they are up to. Today I started at the Orchard Hive, since they have been so wonderful to work with. I also did not need to do a full inspection of them since I was here about a week ago.

They are doing very well. The colony is growing nicely and they are so sweet. Working with them is such a pleasure. They seem to be filling up the hive quickly so I gave them three more empty bars to build on. I stole one beautiful bar filled with brood at all stages to give to the Willow Hive. Since the queen in this hive is laying so nicely, I don’t think they will mind too much. It was actually very easy to convince the bees to come off of the comb. I used some of the fern leaves from the plants around the hive and gently brushed them off.

On this visit I did not see the queen, but there is plenty of evidence that she is there. There was a lot of brood at all stages and the colony was so calm. Those things are good enough for me, I don’t actually have to see her to know that she is there. I often do see the queens and I have gotten quite good at spotting them, but it is not always the case.

Now it’s time to tighten my gear and make sure that I am fully protected from the angry bees of the Willow Hive. Even before I opened the window they were in my face. The ants had moved out of the window area, so that was nice to see. When I opened the lid up there were the wasps again. I waited for them to fly away and then I scraped their little nests off of the lid. Then I found the ants, they had placed their eggs in between some of the bars. Ugh!

This hive is really taking me for a ride this season. I went through the hive twice today and did not find the queen. There is no new brood and the colony size is dwindling. I added the bar of brood from the Orchard Hive into the Willow Hive and I gave them a empty bar with drawn comb. The comb that they have is filling up with pollen and nectar and they don’t see to be building new comb. Honey bees are best at making wax between days twelve and eighteen of life and with the shrinking colony there are less and less bees at this stage.

Adding the bar full of brood now seems to be the only hope for this colony, unless the queen was hiding from me today. I will be checking in on them again soon to see how they are doing and if the queen is there or they are making a new one. This season is going to keep me on my toes.