April 2011

4/23 Installed the package of bees in a new hive in the backyard. Carniolan queen looked black and a little small.

4/23 Inspected all the hives except what was the nuc box at AL. Saw a big, fat queen in the tbh but no brood yet. No brood in Lauren's hive but plenty of nectar. Saw larvae in the original Langstroth hive at AL but missed the queen. The possibly queenless split hive at AL still seems to be struggling. Saw maybe a hand full of larvae but no eggs. Larvae were in a milky liquid which could have been royal jelly. A good few bees flying, so the hive didn't seem directionless. Also bees in the hive were laid back and not agitated, which is another sign of queenlessness.

4/20 Transferred the frames from the nuc at AL into an 8 frame deep box to give the bees more space to expand.

4/18 Inspected Lauren's nuc

4/17 Inspected the hives at AL

4/15 The swarm high up in the neighbor's tree left. The bees didn't go for our attempts at luring them first into Grace's TBH and then a langstroth hive placed up on the patio cover, both with pheromone lures inside.

4/11 Jessica's TBH swarms for the second time and ends in high in the neighbor's tree. Unreachable. Quickly looked into the AL hives and didn't see any new queens or eggs. All swarm cells were open. Saw a little capped brood left over from before the split.

4/10 Weather was warm and I thought the TBH would swarm again. The sister hive of the TBH was busy. I went to look at the AL hives. The original hive was fairly busy and the nuc hive had picked up with bees now flying. The split hive was a little quiet. I peeked in all the hives and the split hive did seem low on bees. Perhaps due to the split or maybe this is the hive that swarmed. All hives seemed quiet inside with no queens piping.

4/9 Jessica heard another queen piping in the TBH

4/6 Stole a medium frame of honey from the original strong AL hive to give to the new bees retrieved yesterday. Also added a extra medium box to the new hive, which I then subsequently thought was a mistake. Also removed a small lobe of wax which they'd built in the wrong place.

4/6 While stealing the frame of honey the AL guy told me that one of the hives swarmed the previous day and that the swarm was still high up in a tree. Couldn't see it myself. Wondered with the language barrier whether he was pointing out where the bees were.

4/5 Jessica's top bar hive swarmed in the early afternoon into Loren's backyard. Huge swarm on a single branch of her orange tree. The branch partially broke under the weight. Cut branch and walked over the the hive to shake bees into a cardboard box first and then the hive. Placed in a single 8 frame medium box.