I went into this past winter with one healthy hive and it seemed to be doing well thru March of 2013. But in late March I lost the hive. After opening things up it appears that all the honey reserves were gone. I did however have granulated sugar left over that I had put in the hive as an emergency feed. Not sure if the bees starved or the died off from something else. Oh well.....
After several weeks delayed due to the weather, I picked up two bee packages that I had ordered from Mike. I installed them in the hive that afternoon when I thought it would be the warmest part of the day.
April 24, 2013
Checked both hives today to see if the queens were released from their queen cages. They were not. Since I was pressed for time, I helped things out a little by making a small hole in the candy so the queens could escape. Later, both queens were able to get out of their cages and join the hives. I'm hoping I didn't rush things along too fast and both hives will accept their queens. After the queens were with the rest of the bees, I put the remaining frames in each box and installed top feeders. I put 1 gallon of 1:1 syrup in each feeder and shut everything up. I'll check next week to see if they need more syrup and if the queens are laying eggs.
