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.