There have been some issues and challenges to address and I hope I have managed to do this in such a way as to not upset the bees and therefore mess up the development of the colonies for the rest of the spring.
So this is what I found....
Autumn Queen Hive (AQH) - was the Blue Queen Hive:
This was the weakest of my hives to come through the winter. I requeened the hive in mid September 2011 and I was quite concerned that the new queen wouldn't have enough time to build up the numbers of bees in her colony to a sufficient level before the winter came. But she did!
A week ago I reduced the AQH to a single deep but after looking though an adjacent stronger hive I decided to take bees from this hive and add them to the AQH. I did this on Wednesday. I basically took one deep of bees from the stronger hive and added them to the single deep. It's a bit more complicated than that and I will address this in the discussion about the adjacent hive). Needless to say I did not just 'plonk' the new deep on the existing deep, I placed a sheet of newspaper between the deeps. But other than this I did no further manipulations.
There is a strong nectar flow on at the moment and I am concerned that the bees are filling the hive with this and therefore reducing the space the queen has for egg laying. I added a super to the hive and with luck the bees will move the nectar up to this super from the deep and generate some laying space. The next time I am in the hive I will look at where the brood is and consider equalizing and balancing the frames out. Perhaps tomorrow...
White Queen Hive (WQH):
This is the same White Queen Hive as last year. The queen is now a year old and I will probably re-queen this hive in April. The hive came through the winter very strong. It overwintered in 3 deeps and that really seemed to help it's survival. When I opened the hive for the first time I was really surprised to see how many bees were resident in all 3 deeps! There are also frames filling with nectar (remember this is still March!) and I even found an open swarm cell. I had to do something!
I decied to move a deep of bees to the adjacent AQH hive to strengthen this hive. So last week I placed a queen excluder between the top two deeps of the WQH to help me locate where the queen was. I looked, and I looked, and I looked for eggs in the top deep on Wednesday and I couldn't see any! So I moved this top box on to the AQH. I did check the deep below the queen excluder to confirm there were eggs in this deep, but I couldn't see there any either! I HOPE I have just moved a bees and not moved the queen as well! I will check tomorrow to see if I can see any emergency queen cells! That will be a big clue.
If there are queen cells present I will simply keep going back into the WQH and remove them (and any subsequent ones) before I drop in another queen in about 3 weeks time. Not ideal I know, but at least I will be controlling the numbers of bees in the hive and so controlling swarming! It's all a bit ad-hoc though!
As well as reducing the bees in the hive it was very obvious that this hive contains a huge amount of nectar for the time of year. Serious issue if the queen is laying in numbers (which she is)! I added two supers on top of the now two deep hive just so the bees can move nectar away from the brood area and give the queen more space to lay in.
Clay Bees (formally the City Bees):
I managed to reduce the hive down into one deep last weekend. There were about 4 frames of brood in the hive as well as pollen and nectar. It is looking nicely set up. But it still has a very defensive temperment. It's not so bad if you only stand next to the hive, but as soon as you start to work the hive the bees become very aggresive. I was working the single deep, got as far as the sixth frame and had to close the hive as I was being attacked and got stung twice. Admittedly I was not in a full bee suit, but really ladies, this is spring and you're supposed to be all joyful and calm! This hive will be requeened in April - no question!
Anyway, before running away I managed to throw another empty deep on the hive so this hive now has space for the queen to move into as well! Hopefully swarming tendencies are being controlled here too.
Garden Bees:
I checked the Botanical Garden bees for the first time today. They overwintered in a single deep and a single super. The super was left on last year as there was honey in it that couldn't really be harvested. In hindsight this was a good decision (it happens once in a while!). This hive looks lovely! There was brood throughout the super as well as in a single deep frame. I was fully prepared to add another deep to the hive but as there was adequate space available in the deep I just reversed the deep and the super. I will go back in a week or so and I will probably add the second deep then. If the brood is out of the super I may just move it up to the top of the hive and hopefully the bees will store nectar here.
All in all I am quite surprised this hive is so nicely balanced! I thought it was a bit light going into the winter and it didn't take on much syrup when offered!
If the weather allows I will go though AQH and WQH tomorrow to see what needs to be done here in terms of equalizing and swarm cells. I will also remove the entrance reducers from these hives.
It's been an exciting week of beekeeping! It's been good to get back in the saddle so to speak!
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