God Save the Queen! Honey Bee update.

Earlier this week we did a full inspection in the bee yard.  All of our hives survived the winter. We have 4 full size hives and 3 nucs.

 All hives are looking great except the Hufflepuff. They are getting ready to overthrow their queen (supersede). About a week and half ago the hive was full of capped brood and larva, but when we check them yesterday there was no capped brood and only a few larva. We spotted the queen, so she is still there...but she's not doing her job. So they are attempting to raise a new queen to supersede her.

We have a few different options that we could do. We could cull the queen (kill her) and introduce a new queen, or let nature take it's course and hope that they are able to successfully raise a new queen on their own.

We decided to allow them to raise their own queen.  We gave them some frames of eggs and larvae from another hive, and are hoping for the best.  This photo is a supercedure cell, and it's where they will raise their queen. Once the queen hatches, she'll most likely kill the old queen and go on a maiden mating flight to seek out drones from a different hive to mate with.  She will then return to lay eggs and act as the ruling queen.  It's all a little risky, but we are hoping it all works out other wise we could lose this hive.

 All other hives look good, we'll be doing some splits soon to hopefully prevent swarming. The bees are bringing in all kinds of different colored pollen. Red, orange, yellow and green!

They love the Dead nettle, this guy is covered in pollen.

i had no idea there were so many different colors of pollen.   You can see red, orange, yellow and green in the hive! 

i found this chart online to help identify some of the pollen colors. Right now our peach trees are in full bloom, but the bees can travel up to 2 miles radius looking for pollen. So i'm not sure what all they are bringing in.

We are hoping to pull honey after the next big honey flow. A bit disappointed that we probably won't be getting any from Hufflepuff while they are busy trying to raise a new queen instead of focusing on honey production.  i'm just really hoping that the new queen survives and can save the hive before it's too late. God save the queen!

Honey, it's warming up outside!

i wouldn't say that winter is officially over, but we have been getting a few really nice days in between the crappy one.  On those days when it's over 60, we check on the bees.

We've been eager to check them all winter, but it has to be over 50 degrees outside to open the hive.  So we've had to patiently wait and hope for the best. It's not unusual to lose a few hives over the winter. We started the winter with 4 main hives (2 deeps, 2 regular) and 3 nucs. We had try to go into winter with 4 hives and 4 nucs, but one of our splits refused to accept a new queen and we eventually had to combined it back with it's regular hive.

When the temperatures are warm enough for the bees to fly, we know it's safe to do an inspection of the hive.  There isn't much pollen available yet, but the bees leave the hive to poop and clean out any dead bees that didn't survive the winter.

Inspection went well!  All of our hives survived the winter and appear to be thriving. We found all the queens and spotted new larvae and capped brood in all hives and nucs!!   The bees still have plenty of stores to get them into to the next honey flow.  So we should be able to pull a lot of honey this spring.

In the Spring, we have to watch for signs that the bees may swarm. We have two extra nuc boxes available if we need to split. We also have two queen castles and will attempt to raise our own queens.

Just this week i've started to see a few things blooming.  The bees are beginning to bring in some pollen from their daily flights.  Dandelions are the first spring food for bees..  As more things begin to bloom they should begin filling frames with pollen and nectar.  We are entering our second season with bees. It's has been a learning process for sure, but i'm really eager to see how they do this year.  i've been exploring lots of different recipes and uses for honey, and can't wait for our first honey harvest. We do plan to have some for sale in our Shady Grove Homestead store later this summer.