April 12, 2012

Checked the top feeders on both hives. On my 'bad' hive, the bees haven't touched the syrup. On the 'good' hive, the feeder was empty. Added a gallon of syrup to the 'good' hive.

Aprl 9, 2012

Checked both hives again today. I'm back to having one good and one bad hive! Seem to being having the same problem as before. Little brood and a lot of done cells. Moved another frame from my good hive over to the bad hive. The wind was blowing fairly hard, so I didn't spend a lot of time in either hive. Closed everything back up and put syrup in the top feeders of both hives.

April 1, 2012

We have a new queen!

Not sure if bring over a frame of brood helped or the bees just took care of themself, but the bad hive now has a new queen.

Seeing brood, eggs, etc.

 ...and here she is.

Still seeing lots of done cells, but I don't think that's a problem.

Guess maybe the queen came out of one of these queen cells.

Lots of bees in the hive. A good sign.

....and the other hive is also doing fine.

Notice the multi color pollen stored in the cells.

Lots of bees on this frame. Notice the capped honey on the left.

Yummy!!

Since the weather is supposed to be cold nights for the next several days, I thought I'd give feed each hive. Put the top feeders on both hives and added a gallon of syrup in each. Also put in 1/2 tablespoon of  Fumagilin-B prevention of Nosema apis.

March 23, 2012

Talked to Mike about my situation. He suggested bring over a frame from the good hive that had brood and eggs on it. The hope is a new queen will be raised. If that didn't work, I'll have to order a new queen. I exchanged on of the frames. Time will tell....

March 18, 2012

Time to look inside the hives for the first time this spring.

Good news and bad!

Here's some shots from the hive I installed late last year. It's the one we replaced the queen. Lots of stored honey, pollen, brood, larvae and eggs. Looks like this one will be a real producer.

That's the good news!



 The bad news...

Doesn't look like the queen is laying in the second hive. This was the hive that was doing so good going into winter. No good looking brood, but lots and lots of drone cells. There also was a queen cell in this hive which I managed to destroy!

Time to get help....