5-31-14 Hive box switch

The experimental hive needed to get moved into a more permanent box... so we combined it with a hive check.

The smaller box was in ok shape considering how few bees they started off with.

The main hive had some nice frames with good brood patterns and should have a decent batch of bees in the next few weeks.

5-24-2014 Checking for queen release

To not use today to check the bees. It looks like both hi released to queens and everything is progressing well. The single package of bees looks to have been split equally between the deep box and the nuc box. Hopefully within the next couple of weeks we will have two full hives.

5-18-2014 Starting over again

I had already ordered a package of bees and needed to get them into a new box. It turned out this would be a fresh start since all the previous colonies had been lost to wax worms.

I also had an extra queen because I had plans to start a new Colony from a split of the overwintered hive.

Since the hive didn't make it, I decided to use some of the bees in the package to start a second hive in a nuc box.  I just added a small percentage of the package to the nuc box with the second new queen.  We'll see how this little experiment goes in a couple weeks.

5-4-2014 Wax Worms!

Wax Worms have destroyed the last two hives we had.  One was actually destroyed last summer, but not added to the blog.  We have a package of bees on the way, but this will be a complete reset of the bee population at Beach land. 

To prevent any other hives from being contaminated,  we'll throw the infested frames on the burn pile.