The remnants of the Cleopatra colony that provided 3 boxes of honey last year are still uncertain. I had checked it on 4/19 and there was young brood but none capped. That brood is still not capped but looks as though it will be both worker and drone. I haven’t seen a queen. I saw a few well-centered, single eggs in cells but the area covered in brood is about 3 sides of a frame the size of the palm of my hand. Not much.

The single box pink colony received a population boost from Todd’s after swarm. There is a queen and I marked her red.

The laying worker colony/swarm experiment seems to be a fail. No bees in the top two boxes. I’m a little concerned that mood of the laying workers may be changing. Grant was head butted while trying to mow the lawn about 30 feet behind and away from the colony. Might shake out and give up on them soon.

I have a laying worker hive. At least 4 frames of brood. The population in the colony is at least 80% drone. They haven’t gotten mean…yet. I’m hoping to avoid that. So…

I put two screen inner covers on top of the laying worker colony and then placed two boxes for the swarm on top of the inner covers. The bottom swarm box has stores; the top swarm box is checker-boarded drawn comb and foundationless frames. I have a solid inner cover with a top entrance for the swarm.

They seemed to take to it pretty nicely.

The interesting thing is that next to this colony is a very weak colony that I think has a queen but only about a palm size patch of brood.  Some bees on this colony began nasonoving and I think about 25% of the swarm went in here!

So I’ll leave the laying worker/swarm colony alone for about a month and see what happens.  I’m hoping that the queen will mate and lay enough frames of brood to overcome the laying workers.  In the meanwhile I’m hoping the queen pheromone will keep the laying workers calm and I won’t end up with a yard of evil bees again this year!

I’ll check the weak colony in the next few days to see if I can detect if the population went up.

It’s always a learning journey!

UPDATE:  April 24th

First, I’m impatient! A day, a month, what’s the difference?!

Anyway, I wasn’t seeing too much action at the top entrance so I decided to check it out.  Not a bee in the top two boxes.  Not one.

So on the waiting 1 month theory, I will remove the top two boxes and screen and wait a while and see if any of them (the queen in particular) made it into the bottom laying worker colony. Doubtful but possible.

On a positive note, I checked the weak pink colony. The bee count is definitely up.  There is a queen.  I marked her red.

Today, August 16, 2015, I went into the 3 nucs that I have at Mel’s to mark my Pauws. They are feisty. I almost messed up. I rapidly found Pauw1 and enclosed her in the new marking gadget (http://www.mannlakeltd.com/beekeeping-supplies/product/HD-101.html) but while I bend down to pick up the marker, I must have opened the trap, because she was gone! I searched through the hive 2 times, not finding her. She was pretty large and orange. As I could not find her in the hive, even after a few minutes, I started looking on the ground. And then I spotted her on the frame that I have removed from the hive to make space. Pf…………..(insert emodicon here). She must still be able to fly at this age. Recaptured her and marked her blue.

On to the next hive. Looked at all the frames twice, could not find a queen. The bees were quite and happy looking though, so I am hopeful. Same for the third. No sighting. On to Mel’s hive. Also happy bees, brood, but no queen. Also no queen cell, so I am sure there is a Pauw in there too. Or she was out mating. I decided to have one more go at the hive near the current bushes and indeed found another big orange Pauw. Also make blue. It is a bit strange, but I remember that the last time I looked at the just emerged queens, they were banded. Dark band behind the head, lighter further down. This coloring must change over time as the queens grow and mature. So that was 2 our of 4.

At Todd’s place the situation was not cheerful: while he had set up a beautiful nuc with 2 frames of brood, the box had been abandoned. An equivalent of a full side of a medium with capped brood was cold and dead.  There was still honey in the combs, which makes it such a mystery. Robbing would have been my first idea, with a small population becoming overwhelmed with fighting intruders. But why would they not take the honey? Todd was disappointed and thinks that maybe there were mostly foragers when he set it up, causing those bees to fly back.

It is too late for another round, but of all the beekeeping tasks, I like queen rearing the best.

Of the Cleopatras in my yard, the Q4, a direct daughter of Mel’s Cleo, is doing splendid. Better dan a grand-daughter from Q4 that I also have. Another grand daughter from Q6 is doing ok. I think that the spendid features of Cleo are diluting out in successive generations. It makes me wonder how that works for breeders.  I hope we can judge Pauw and the Pauw daughters along a similar line. I am reading up on breeding but there is not a lot of literature.

Anyway, it swarmed.  Probably a really nice size swarm based on the density of bees remaining.  I’d guess 5-6 lbs of bees left.  Don’t know where they went.  I’ve walked the neighborhood several times and spoken to neighbors to no avail.  Potentially they’ll survive the winter and swarm like wild things and re-establish the wild population!

The swarm will find it’s new home in Dorothea’s garden.

The Q1 (in three mediums in the picture) seems to be queenless.  They are officially pissy (ornery, defensive, e*%l (Kristien doesn’t like me to describe them with that word!).  Today they stung Kristien, me and my neighbor.  Earlier they’ve tagged Ken and Andrew.  Once I get them closed up, Kristien will tame them at her yard.

Stay tuned tomorrow.  It looks like there’s a potential swarm a brewing in the Swarm cut out from Mel (in 6 mediums on the right).

And last night the bees capped a queen cell! I think this means they will swarm on Tuesday or Wednesday!

I should probably concentrate on fewer hives for feeding in the fall. I really only syrup fed the hives on the farm. It is clear that the candy is not sufficient if it is too cold. Bees need honey!