All Hives Queen Right

Computing the time it would take for worker bee larva to be capped, I decided today would be a good day to look at my hive #3, the 8 framer.  Temperature right around 80, lower humidity, clear skies and gentle breeze--nice day to look at the bees. 
First, in the top box, I found a number of frames with eggs.  Many did not seem to be planted right in the center of the cell, which continued to bother me.  I saw no capped cells or even older larva in the top box.  Right away looking in the bottom box, however, I found frames with good looking patterns of capped worker cells.  Fantastic.  This must be a very shy queen, since I did not see her again but then once I satisfied myself that I had a laying queen, not laying workers, I put the hive back together and closed her up.

It's a bit hard to see with so many bees covering the cells, but the center of each frame was solidly filled with capped worker cells.  I did not see any new drone cells.
Then I looked at the hive which I expanded from the nuc into a 10 frame medium hive body.  I was not really expecting to find a queen or evidence of a queen, but on the third frame I looked at I saw shiny, small larva down in some cells.  On the next frame I found the queen right away, a big, fat, healthy looking queen.  She looked like her mama, who has been an exceptional layer. 
It will be interesting to see how things develop.  Clearly, the hive I introduced the hygenic queen into has a head start.  If the other queen performs like her mother, however, she just might catch up.  How these queens will do as far as honey production, however, remains to be seen.  With all the bees I have in hive #2, they still are being a bit slow drawing out the comb in the second super I put on last week.  It isn't for lack of workers--there were probably 2000 bees just hanging out under the top cover.  We're a bit dry here, and plenty of clover present, so hopefully we'll start seeing some honey produced.

New Hive

I moved the bees from hive #3 into their new home this afternoon.  For now, I put them into two medium supers of the 8 frame hive.  It will be interesting to see how this does throughout the year, the winter in particular.  From what I've read, they should do no worse than my 10 frame hives.  Time will tell.

 

 

Our spiffy new 8 frame hive.

 

As I moved frames over, I noted quite a number of eggs.  Surprisingly, I saw no young larva.  The lighting was not the best, however, and many of the frames have newer, white wax so seeing small 1 or 2 day old larva would have been difficult.  I'll look again in several days when there should be some larger larva.  I again did not locate the queen. 
I then moved the frames from the nuc into one of the boxes I had just taken the frames out of to put in the 8 frame hive.  The queen had emerged, but I did not see her.  She should have emerged last Sunday, so I'll give them another week or so to see if there is a laying queen.  If not, I'll combine these bees with #3 and that will make it a much stronger hive.

The nuc moved into a single medium with the 8 frame beyond.

 

 

 

I thought about moving hive #3 over by the pine trees with the other hives for protection, but decided they are fine in this location and I'll move them in the fall.
Bees were flowing in and out of hive #2.  I put another super on it yesterday, though the first had not been even 80% drawn out.  There is a good flow going on right now, though, and with the wet weather I decided it was best to go ahead and throw that super on. 

A very strong #2 hive

Hive #1 was also full of bees and I quickly found eggs and young larva, so that proves a successful new queen introduction.  Overall, we're pretty happy with things though I still would like to see some better success with starting my own queens.  I'm sure I'll get plenty more opportunities.

Queen Right! and other things

Whew.  Our near catastrophy at doing a direct release of the queen into the new hive seems to have been averted.  We introduced her last Thursday, 4 days ago, and weren't sure whether or not she made it into the hive.  We filled the rest of the medium super with frames and closed it up, hoping for the best.  Today, I opened the hive and noticed all the bees were clustered on one half of the hive.  I guessed, correctly, that if there was a queen and eggs or very young larva, that's where the bees would be concentrated.  I did not find the queen, but did find a good number of eggs, some sticking straight up, which would indicate one day old eggs and a number of 2 to 3 day old eggs laying on their side.  I looked carefully, since I couldn't locate the queen, to make sure they were centered in the cells and there were not multiple eggs in the cells.  It looks good, and I will look to see if they develop properly into worker cells in about a week.  Bees looked happy and busy and I saw some with pollen, which is another good sign.

The new hive is shown here.  The little nuc contains five frames.  One of the frames had several queen cells and they should have emerged one or two days ago.  I'll give that another week before I go peeking around in there.  The queen right hive will be moved into a new 8 frame hive, as soon as the new ones arrive from Mann Lake and I get them assembled and painted.  If a queen develops in the nuc, I will likely give this one to a friend who lost most of his bees this winter.  In a couple of days I will check hive #1 to see if that queen is laying as well.  I've been busy cleaning up old frames and have used up my supply of foundation, so I'll need to order some or take a day trip down to Dadant and pick some up.

White clover is beginning to go strong, but I saw few honey bees on it.  Last year, which was a dry summer, the bees were all over the clover.  I think this spring, being late and quite wet, has provided a variety of blooming plants and the bees can have their pick at this time.  As summer progresses and choices narrow, I'm sure they'll go strongly to the clover. 

Aside from all the rain, which has created some minor flooding in the area, it has been a nice spring.  We have been able to get all of our gardening jobs done.  Here are Kathy's tomato plants, which are looking very good.  At the far end of the garden is a row of black raspberries, and the bees were definitely on their blooms.

The vineyard is looking good.  This is my favorite time with the grapes, when they are just setting on and I don't see any signs of disease yet, no Japanese beetles yet, and the vines looks clean and fresh.  The winter was very hard on my vines.  I lost two completely, Cayuga whites, and had dead shoots on a number of vines.  Harvest will be much below average this year.

The late, cool spring has brought a bumper crop of fruit in our area.  Our blueberries look fantastic so far, and we look to have a great harvest of not only blueberries but apples, cherries (sweet and sour)  raspberries, and peaches.  The rhubarb has been wonderful as has the asparagus this year.

Unfortunately, with all the spring chores of bee care, gardening, home maintenance, etc., I haven't even uncovered the sailboat or our power boat for some water fun.  It'll happen--summer isn't even officially here yet!