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