It has been just over a month since I did the original splits. The weather this weekend is going to be very
rainy there is a low off the coast of Florida.
I am worried that if I don’t get into my hives today I won’t be able to
because of the weather. As soon as I
went into hive #2 I could tell things didn’t look right. The population was down and most of the bees
were towards the front of the hive. I
didn’t see any eggs, larvae, or capped brood other than what I had put into the
hive on April 7th. I didn’t
see a laying queen but I did see several queen cups and cells on several
bars. I gave them another bar of eggs,
and brood from hive #3 and hopefully they will continue to do their thing. Hive #1 is another story! I
have a laying queen!!!! I was so
excited because I found her on bar # 8 and she is laying beautifully. Nature is amazing! To think that the bees are able to raise a
queen from any egg that they feed royal jelly, she hatches, goes out on a
virgin flight, mates with several drones that are waiting for her in a Drone
Concentration Areas (DCA), and returns to the exact hive and starts her life as
a Queen bee. Amazing!
The other two hives are looking good as well. The queens were present and their brood
pattern looks great and they are growing in size. I forgot to mention that during that process I
was able to harvest several bars of honey especially from hive #2. Since the population is down right now they
did not need all those bars of honey so I was able to harvest 5 bars
total. What a great bonus!! I spent the rest of the day crushing and
straining honey. I harvested 14 jars of
gorgeous amber honey. After all those
stings the honey was sweeter than ever! I
think you can also see the difference in the color of the honey. The darker amber honey was older and the
lighter honey is newer honey from the spring.
I had some labels made and I can’t wait to send my honey to friends and
family.
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