March 2013

3/17 Came back to AL and split the hive with the swarm cells in. Made two hives with 4 frames of things in each. The worked on was the same one which had swarm cells in on 3/3. Now have 11 hives at AL and 2 at home.

3/16 Inspected the two hives at AL that have the original two queens still in. Found eggs in both and a few almost capped swarm cells in one. This is the hive that I hadn't put a second deep box on and I think I crammed too many full frames in when I did the splits... at least two frames of honey and no empty frames. I think this was the mistake. Iro was there for the first time and it was interesting to talk about how her dad looks after bees in Greece.

3/10 Split the hive in the backyard into three. Found one fully capped swarm cell. One of the hive transported to AL. Worked well as I think we took a few worker bees with it which then oriented at the new location. Now have 10 hives at AL and 2 at home.

3/9 Split the feisty hive into two with the plan to subsequently recombine it as an experiment.

3/3 Split the two hives at the cottage at AL These hives have done amazingly well with 3 deep boxes full of everything. Could have done a three-way walk away split on one of the hives. Instead took the time to check everything. One of the hives had a capped swarm cell and three queen cups with at least one egg in one of them. Split the hive with swarm cell/queen cups into 4 hives and the other one into 3. Spent the next few days shuffling the hives around to try and spread the bees a little more evenly. It worked well, I think. Need to check the new hives on 3/31 to see if we have eggs in all the hives.

3/1 Noticed first bloom on the apricot tree had opened. Almond trees down the creek in full bloom

February 2013

2/22 Noticed first few blooms on Loren's almond tree were open. In the following week all the almonds trees down the creek were in full bloom. Loren's tree were a bit behind these.

During February: Placed a third deep on all of the hives and started opening up the brood nest by placing in empty frames. Moved honey frames up in the third box. The bees did very well and drew the empty frames and started drawing frames in the third box. Keep opening up the broodnest each week (I think for two weeks in total) and moving frames up. The bees at the cottage and at home ultimately drew all the frames out so as to have 3 boxes full of drawn out frames with brood almost everywhere. This whole procedure worked great and will have lots of resources for the splits in March. The feisty hive, though, did respond as well and struggled to fill the extra space.

January 2013

Number of hives: One at home and three at LA Noticed lots of drones towards from all the hives towards the end of January. Much earlier than in previous years. Check for mites and found them to be in the 10-20 range per day.