This is Alpha Hive after we removed the entrance reducer.
Last weekend before heading home Jim and I found some abandoned pallets and decided to use them under the Nasty Hive and Hive C. My dad stayed up there and earlier in the week he was kind enough to load the pallets on his little tractor and dropped them off near the hives for us. Apparently he left the motor running a bit too close to the Nasty Hive so between the racket the engine was making and the exhaust it was spewing out, the Nasty Hive did what it does best and got NASTY. A few of them made a BEEline right for his face. The other thing that annoys bees in general is anything that swats which my dad continually did. He said one darted at him and got him on the nose.
Today we suited up and had a number of things to do, one of which was to lay the pallets down and carefully move the hives onto their new location. Our first stop was the Alpha Hive and we wanted to check to make sure the new queen was laying brood. We opened the top and the girls were wonderful as always. Jim and I think they play games with us because when we open the telescoping lid, a few of them peer out of the top cover and we have a staring game.
Once we removed the top cover, the honey super was full of worker bees all doing their thing. We estimate about 50% of the honey super was being worked on. Jim suggested we go deeper into the hive to find the queen or at least find bood. Removing a few frames of the brood supers was difficult because it was FULL of capped honey. We did find the 2 supersedure cells we left a few weeks ago and according to some websites we researched, we did find that the queen Jim spotted last week did indeed tear into the 2nd supersedure cell and killed off the other queen before she emerged. Unfortunately Jim, who is excellent at spotting laid eggs, couldn't find any. We believe because of the 2 weeks of torrential rain and wind, that she wasn't able to leave the hive to mate and she could possibly be laying unfertilized drone eggs. We'll check early next Saturday morning and if we still don't spot any brood, we'll hike up to Greenwich NY to purchase another queen and introduce her in the colony. Finding the virgin queen and killing her will be a daunting task.
The last adjustment to the hive was removing the entrace reducer. This was a great move because it allowed them all to come and go at a much faster pace. Other than the missing brood, the hive is behaving fantastic with their nectar and pollen collection.
Onto Hive C... we removed the feeder that's been on there for a few weeks. This hive was a bit disappointing because they haven't really drawn out enough comb and we couldn't find any trace of egg laying. Having pulled out a few frames, we were surprised to find several swarm & supercedure cells on some frames. We believe that there wasn't proper ventilation with the top feeder on and think that this was the cause for those cell creations. We ended up closing her up and moving her onto the wooden pallet was a breeze.
The Nasty Hive was another surprise...they were much calmer. Could it be that they're getting used to us or was it the smoking we gave it? All indications point to the smoking which we'll need to do going forward when we have to go into the hive. The 2nd surprise we had was how much comb was drawn AND the nicely laid eggs. Jim, of course, spotted them. There were some empty frames on the Nasty Hive so there wasn't any need to add another brood super just yet. We closed it up content that this one will survive wonderfully. Moving the hive onto the pallet wasn't as difficult as I thought. Since this one faces North, in a completely direction than the other two, we decided to slowly rotate her every weekend until this hive faces the same direction as the others. We believe this will help the hive survive the winter since the opening will face the rising sun and keep them warmer.
We're keeping our fingers crossed this week that the lagging hives will pick themselves up and be active by the time we see them again.
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