Latest status

I was able to find the red marked hybrid queen. She has apparently been laying a lot since there are lots of uncapped larvae. There are also lots of drones left over from the old queen. The new queen is working on about 5 frames. There is still syrup in the bucket so I am going to leave her alone until next week I think.

I was able to find the unmarked Italian queen laying eggs in the upper box. The bees are working 2-3 frames in the upper box. The lower box has about 6 frames of brood: capped, uncapped and eggs and some honey and pollen around the edges of the brood. Overall this queen is looking really good. Again there is still syrup in the bucket so I think I can leave her alone until next weekend.

The temperature today is about 80 degrees so I don't think my inspection disturbed the larvae too much. We'll see how things look next weekend.

Checking in again

Since I'll be gone for a week I figured I should check in on my 2 hives. The hybrid queen was walking around looking healthy so I can leave her to get started. The Italian queen has 4 frames of brood going and is still laying eggs. I put another box on top so she won't get crowded while I'm gone. She'll also get a new bucket of syrup before I leave.

I like working without gloves. I find I get stung less often since I can feel the bee before crushing it. Working with just the veil is cooler as well.

Another check on Sunday June 9

I checked on the hybrid queen. She was still in her cage, but they were working on releasing her. I let her out since they should be ready for her now.
I also checked on the queen in the other package. She is doing a great job. At least 3 frames of brood with a nice even pattern. By comparison the other Italian queen is a real dud. I'm glad that I replaced her.
I think in a couple of days I'll add another box to the Italian package. I'll wait a bit longer to do anything with the Russian hybrid, I think.

Requeening

I removed the queen from the hive on Wednesday and replaced her with a Russian hybrid from the Honey Exchange on Thursday. It's supposed to rain for a couple of days so I'll check on the hive when the weather improves.
I gave both hives syrup with fumigilin just to be on the safe side.
Just for a laugh--when I looked into the hives last it looked like there was mold growing! There was gray stuff in some cells. Then I noticed some of the pollen baskets on the bees were gray. I looked it up. Blackberries yield gray pollen so I should see a lot of that.
I need to find a source for Hop Guard that doesn't sell it in 50 units.

Pictures of Troubled Hive

I am planning to requeen this hive since the pattern is spotty and appears to be mostly drones.

Two Queens

I went looking for queens in both hives today and found them!

I didn't think there was a queen in my first package, but I saw her today, and it's too soon for it to be a supersedure so she is probably the one that came with the package on 5/18.  I don't think she's doing a very good job though.

I think the queen from the other package is producing more eggs in a better pattern. I got her on 5/23, and  she has more frames working.

I'll check them again next week and see if I should think about replacing her.

New Packages

I picked up a package from Erin Forbes last Saturday. It is from Rossman Apiaries and looked really good. Very few dead bees in the bottom. I brought them home and installed them in a medium box. Strangely the cork in the end opposite the candy was crooked and had no candy plug so I wound up taking the cork out of the other end and making a small hole in the candy on that end.
I opened the hive up on Monday to see if the queen was out yet, but she was not so I put her back. Otherwise everything looked normal.
Yesterday (Thursday) I opened the hive up and found the queen cage empty. I looked through several frames before I found some eggs. Yay! The bees were drawing comb and putting in nectar.
They also had started a queen cup 1/3 of the way from the top of the frame--not a swarm cell, apparently a supersedure cell. I guess they are not happy with their new queen? I'm going to leave them alone for now. The weather has been too rainy and cool to do much besides feed them

Yesterday I picked up a package from Brown's Bee Farm. Also Georgia bees, but not from Rossman. I should copy over the information from the box. There were some dead bees on the bottom of the package, but not a huge amount. A good cluster formed around the queen cage.
Again the cork opposite the candy was crooked and had no candy plug. The queen also seemed to have a lot of attendants. I don't know if that means anything or not. I did the same thing with this queen cage and pulled the cork on the end with the candy and dug out some of the candy so the bees should have an easier time freeing her. It's supposed to rain all weekend so I won't be able to look in on them until Monday.

Both hives have buckets of 1:1 syrup with a feeding supplement. One medium box with screened bottom and telescoping top.

I have been trying out the uniform that I noticed the master beekeepers wore at the Open Hive at the beginning of May--a veil, but no gloves. It is actually easier not to squish a bee if you can feel it before closing your fingers on it. The only thing is they had their veils attached to jackets/shirts so no bees in the armpits:) That's the thought that freaks me out when I'm working with the veil. I can keep the bees out of my face and hair, but I'm usually wearing a t-shirt if it's warm and getting stung in the armpit seems like such an awful thought. Maybe it has to happen so I can get over it. No stings so far this year so I'm doing better than last year.