I checked my hives today. 3 weeks since I last looked inside. I didn't do a complete check because its 95F and 12 noon. I think not the best time to check. Both hives were incredibly active.
White hive: LOTS of bees. OMG! I didn't open the boxes, just looked at the honey super. It has four nice frames on honey. I need to look up when to put on the second super.
Green hive: These bees were really vicious. I checked 2 frames in each box. No larvea, no capped brood, several open queen cells, and LOTS of food. They are filling up the hive with honey and pollen. So, it looks like they lost the queen, tried to make a new one, but this failed. Or they swarmed and left the hive queenless. I have noticed that the number of bees I see on the running board is gradually decreasing compared to the other hive. I will call around and see where and when I can get a new queen. I assume I will need to take out a number of those frames of food so that a queen will have room to lay.
I got two half stings on my thigh. Not bad ones. But I am planning to buy a full bee suit instead of my bee jacket. I think it might be cooler than wearing thick jeans and I don't like getting stung.
Ah, first sign of a queenless hive is how mean they can get. Hopefully you get a queen soon and might even want to put in a frame of brood to suppress laying workings from developing.
ReplyDeleteCan I tell if workers ar laying? Would the larvae all be large like normal drone cells?
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