Run, run fast!

On Wednesday, August 17, I tried to do a thorough inspection of my hives.

I started with the first split. I found that there are 5 frames of eggs and brood in the bottom box and 3 frames in the middle box. The top box is about half full of nectar/honey so there is still room to expand. I have been feeding the split 1:1 syrup to try to have 3 full boxes going into the winter so I will continue feeding. They are taking a jar (2 lbs water and 2 pounds sugar) every other day. I saw the queen, and the brood pattern is good.

I then moved to the second split. Again I found that there are 5 frames of eggs and brood in the bottom box and 3 frames in the second box. I did not see the queen. The brood pattern is not quite as nice as the first hive, and there are more drones. The second box is not yet full so I have not added a third box yet. This hive is also taking syrup, just a little slower. Not quite as strong as the first split, but I expect to add a third box in another week so I think this split will be ready for winter.

Lastly I opened up the main hive all the way to the bottom box. I have not done that since the last time I pulled frames for the second split. There were a lot of bees, but they were cranky! I saw some drone brood and at least three supersedure cells in the first 5 frames in the bottom box. I could hear some odd noises as well. After being stung 4 times while looking at the first 5 frames, I decided to run away far and fast. Too much pain for this inspection. I put the boxes back together and had to use a lot of smoke just to keep from being stung again. I looked it up on YouTube to verify that the noises I was hearing correspond to a virgin queen announcing herself. I listened later the next day and could hear at least 3 queens piping and quacking. The noises were simultaneous and seemed to come from different parts of the hive. I listened again this morning,  and the piping had stopped. The evidence suggests that the queens have fought it out, and they are down to one queen. The hive is no longer roaring loudly so hopefully they will settle down to making honey until the new queen starts laying. I don't know why they superseded the old queen. I thought she was great, but that eliminates any ideas I had about requeening that hive. Larry had said he was able to control mites by breaking the brood cycle and requeening every other year, and I was debating the wisdom of that, but the hive has made that decision for me. The weather is good so she should be able to fly for mating. I am still not feeding that hive since I hope to harvest some honey, but we'll see how things are going in a week or so. 

With all new queens I should be set for overwintering these 3 hives. I have been cleaning up old equipment so in the spring I can try the split technique again and try to optimize the populations. I think I need to experiment and observe more to better manage the bees. My hands-off method certainly has not paid off so I might as well try a new approach.