First nice day since installed. Sunny, upper 40's.

Hive #1 had lots of bees outside the hive... well not LOTS but more than hive #2. I opened hive #2 and the queen was still in the cage. The candy was eaten down quite a ways. I took a stick and pushed it in. I put the cage back and after that there was lots of bees flying around hive #2. duh. They both seem to be doing well. Seem to be so many more bees than we had last year. Of course the drawn out comb helps a lot. Looking forward to our second year. And to the other queens I have coming! Eek! I need to get some more bees!

Year number two begins...

We weren't able to winter over the one hive that survived until fall. Lots of honey for a hive that was just packaged the same year on new frames. I was sad that they gave us so much and then perished. We sent a specimen to the the Bee Research Laboratory. The diagnosis was varroa mite infestation. The counted 105 mites in the sample I sent them. No tracheal mites, no nosema.
So, we start our second year of beekeeping with 2 new packages that were installed today. We picked them up at Honey Glow Farms in Owen, WI. The truck from California doesn't come until tomorrow. The bees we got are from their own bee yard. One package of Italians and one of Carniolans.

The installations went amazingly well compared to last year. They had sprayed them with sugar water prior to us picking them up. I think that helped. The temp was in the low 40's and cloudy. A bit breezy also. They were clustered pretty tight. Too cold for them to be flying around. Amazing how much warmth they produce. The cans of syrup from the packages were very warm. It took me a moment to figure out why they felt so warm when I picked them up.

Both queens were alive and moving around ALOT. I think they are ready to get out and get busy! Hopefully the workers will figure out how get the candy out of the hole so they can get to her. I will check back in a couple of days to make sure they did.

Both packages have quite a bit of drawn out frames and honey. A few didn't have foundation. I am interested to see how fast they build up since they don't have to start from scratch like the ones last year did. It is nice that even though the hive last year didn't make it, at least they left something behind that will be helpful to another hive.

A pollen patty on each of them and 2 buckets of sugar water. Used real cane sugar and added Honey Bee Healthy. I thought about using fumagillin, but decided not to in the end.

The hive on the left is the Carnolians, the one on the right is Italians.

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On May 28,2010

I am posting this late. We returned home from a vacation in the UP. I noticed something was not right in one of our hives... the foundationless one. Posted the following on Bee Source:

Got back from a week away and noticed right away that something wasn't right with one of our hives. Took a look inside and discovered that we have laying workers. A few capped drone cells and lots of cells with multiple eggs.
Now, what to do? Is it worth it to try to replace the queen? Is there anything I can do to make them accept her? Or should I shake it and try to find a nuc? If I can't find a nuc or a package, then I would like to at least try to requeen before I give up on it for the year. This is our first year of beekeeping and I figure it is all a learning experience.

Any advice would be much appreciated!

I ended up shaking the queenless hive in front of the queenright hive. The next day I put the deep from that hive onto the queenright hive. Now we have one hive with 3 deeps. Still feeding.

June 16, 2010

Started the day with 3 deeps and the entrance reducer on the larger setting. Still had sugar water on.

Reversed the 2 bottom boxes (both with Pierco plastic frames), and put our first honey super on (with Pierco plastic frames, white). No more feeding. Took the entrance reducer off. Everything is looking good. Lots of brood. Capped honey. No swarm or supercedure cells.

I hated to mess with them, but I knew I needed to learn from them. I can't see through the boxes so I torn their world apart and put it back together.

I don't really care about getting honey for ourselves this year. I just didn't want to go on vacation and leave them with no room. The top two boxes were at least 80% drawn out. The bottom box was only 70%. Now it is the middle box so I hope they start drawing it out more.

At any rate, I think they should have enough to get by until we get back from vacation.

Did our second hive inspection today. The hive with the Pierco foundation is doing well, but the second box we put on has a lot of cross comb. I think they are confused about where they are supposed to build. Otherwise, things are looking good. They were in a much better mood today, for certain. I didn't get stung either :)

The foundationless hive isn't ready for a second box yet. Looks like a lot of brood has hatched and they are cleaning the cells out. I believe in the end they might do much better. We shall see. They seem to be taking their time but being much more organized, if that makes sense.

Will post pictures later.

It has been fairly cold and rainy the past few days. I am a little worried about the bees. I hope they are okay. There were a few dead bees outside the hive a few days ago when this weather came in.