Nice Italian Queen

I left the hive alone until today, after installing the new queen. What I found was not good. The beautiful divide that I made last week was completely infested with Small Hive Beetle Larvae. I was so disappointed to find this. The new Italian Queen was still in her cage not released, but alive. Her attendants were all dead. I completely destroyed all the bars throwing them into the trash, as there were very few bees left. Inside the hive there were dead bees, larvae, wax, and hundreds of small hive beetle larvae. I can only think of two scenarios to explain what happened. First with the queen not being released the hive was too weak to protect and defend itself from the small hive beetles. Or second, it looks like the population of bees was affected somehow, maybe by robbing, which is maybe why the queen wasn’t released. That may have weakened the hive allowing it to succumb to the small hive beetles. Either way the results are the same. I feel badly for all the bees that died, I feel badly that a beautiful divide failed.

I cleaned out the hive box with water and a scrub brush and a little Clorox Clean Up, got all the larvae and scum out of the hive and preceded to make another mix origin divide. Thank you Les for teaching me this during your class in Albuquerque it has come in very handy. I was able to take 12 bars of honey, nectar, and various stages of brood and make another divide. We cleaned out the Queen Cage of her dead attendants and punctured the candy in the queen cage so the bees could eat through properly.

All looked well! Let’s hope this goes a lot better. I will check the hive Sunday to make sure the queen is released properly. If not I will release her myself. By Sunday it will give the bees enough time to adjust to the new pheromones. I will also brush a few nurse bees into the hive if I think I need to boost the population.

Here is a really cool picture from the hives today, some new honeycomb with bees festooning. It is so cool to watch their behavior. Now if they would just behave so they don’t stress me out so…. I need to breathe!

Trip to Boston

I am exhausted as I have been moving my youngest son Drew into his new apartment for his second year of college. The weather in Boston was beautiful in the 60's during the night and high 70's and low 80's during the day. As usual being up north brought back so many memories of gardening as a youngster. Many flowering annuals were in bloom at this time of the year. I walked from the Copley Marriott towards my son’s apartment, which was about a twenty minute walk. As I passed through the beautiful Christian Science Center, there were some lovely gardens around the reflection pond filed with different lavenders, and echinchias . The Lavender flowers smelled delicious and were full of bees. It was very peaceful to walk through these gardens and pond. It would be a lovely place to sit and meditate on a beautiful fall day. I took some pictures of some local gardens as I walked through the streets of Boston. Somehow they just call to me and I am unable to pass them by without stopping and taking time to smell the roses as the saying goes, and a few pictures. Right outside my son’s apartment is a beautiful Rose of Sharon bush. The bees were numerous and enjoying the nectar that the tree provided. I am exhausted from moving my son into his apartment. We are not use to stairs in Miami and his apartment was on the 4th floor. My calves were so sore I could hardly walk for a couple of days. Even though I was exhausted and broke financially, I got my son settled into his apartment, and got to enjoy the northeast for a few days. Here are some pictures of my trip.