So much for our plan to keep five colonies without splitting. We are now at nine (seven hives + 2 nucs), which is the most we can have without buying more nucs, tops, or bottoms. Today’s break in the rainy weather provided a good inspection window. A brief summary:
#1 was showing early signs of swarming April 1, and we removed two queen cells to a nuc. Today they were working in all 10 frames of their super, with central frames full of honey and about 1/3 capped. Some drones and even some worker brood on the center frames, which is not surprising as we don’t use excluders. Probably about 20-25 lbs in the super so we will have some early honey to extract. We opened the broodnest with foundationless frames and they have drawn these almost entirely as drone cells (:-(), but they show no signs of swarm impulse now. I added a second super below the first one, as they are ready for the space.
#1B was a five-frame nuc we pulled from #1. The last time I checked they had a capped queen cell, which should be hatching right about now. Once she is laying we will sell the nuc or give it to friends, freeing up a nuc for more splits.
#2 has a questionable queen, building up slowly and laying a high percentage of drones even in winter. We bought a queen for this hive last weekend but elected to split it, preserving the old queen in one box. Once the new queen is accepted and laying next week we will most likely recombine, as neither half is particularly strong on its own.
#2B is now a single deep with a new purchased queen, who should be released by now but we won’t check until next Wednesday or so.
#3 has about 25 pounds in its super, though about 1/3 to 1/2 of this is pollen. We caught them ready to swarm and very hot on April 1. We destroyed all queen cells and introduced a purchased queen on 4/7, who should be released and starting to lay about now. Will check on them next Wednesday or so to see if she is laying.
#3B is a nuc originally pulled from #3 with the original queen. As their aggressive behavior was not acceptable, we killed the queen, then shook the bees off the frames, swapped the brood frames into #6 for brood/eggs from that hive, and swapped the nectar into #5 for full frames of capped honey from that hive. They now have four queen cells from Hive #6 eggs, which should be capped in a few days and emerging in less than two weeks. This nuc will also be sold or given to friends if successful.
#5, our Old Sol bees, are rapidly drawing comb in their super and storing early honey. I didn’t inspect the lower boxes today but given that we reversed recently and opened the brood nest, and that they are working upward instead of backfilling, they don’t appear to be in swarm mode.
#6, our midsummer swarm overwintered as a single deep that exploded in March and that forages at 45 degrees when our other hives are all clustered, was in full swarm mode today. I thought this might be in the offing last inspection when I saw they were completely ignoring their super and instead backfilling nectar into the broodnest. (One argument for uniform-sized equipment: We could more easily move brood/honey frames up to encourage them to move into the super.) They had about 15-20 swarm cells, all a few days from capping. I found the queen and moved her with seven frames of brood/stores and two of solid stores into a single deep, adding foundation and foundationless frames to both sides of the broodnest (with all of the swarm cells) in the original hive.
#6B is now a double deep with many undrawn frames and multiple queen cells. I’m hoping the ample space and reduced population encourages them to let the queens duke it out rather than swarming with the first virgin to emerge. Depending on how the new queen turns out we might elect to keep her and sell the split with the old queen, or else to keep the old queen and sell the new split. Or we might try to keep six hives all season, but that would require buying more supers, and $1600 into our bee hobby we need to stop buying stuff…