May 14, 2012

Quite alot has happened since I posted last. Guess I'm not much better at blogging than I am at keeping a written diary!
We thought we would be closing on the property tomorrow, but alas, we are waiting on the appraisal to come back. They were supposed to have it back within 7 days. today is the 7th day and it did not come in. We are hoping for Friday this week (5/18) Had to change the U-Haul, movers, carpet cleaners, etc. Oh well life's a b....
The split is still alive. Did not find the queen (unmarked queens !@#$* never again!) but also didn't find eggs. Were able to procure a marked queen Thursday evening from a friend (Allen from Bee Friends) and installed her on Friday. Checked for her today, she was still in the cage and the sugar plug was  still pretty much there. Sterling took the screen off and they left. Flew off??? Happened too quick to tell for sure. This hive is totally in fates hands now. No more attempts to re-queen. We will not go in again until after we move the box to the farm. If they are still alive then it will be by a miracle. We saw only scattered capped brood, no eggs and no larvae.
Got the last box of bees for the Washburn apiary from Kelly's on Saturday and installed them. Used the shake method. No surprises and will return to check on the queen tomorrow when this rain is expected to be gone.
None of the hives are taking much syrup so we will not put on anymore, except the newest one.
We have a super of honey on #1 that had a little drone brood in. Took off the excluder, so the drones will be able to escape now. There were quite a few dead drones in that box as you can imagine. Now they can fly away we hope. We did not go lower and see what was happening. We will after they are moved.

Will keep you all posted on new developments.

Honey

Well we finally extracted some honey from our bees! What a treat that was. definitely can see the benefit of a larger extractor. But this will work for this year. Wasn't able to help and take pictures with sticky fingers. Will work on that next time. Prices are $4 for #1 jar, $8 for #2 jar.

Queenless hive

this is what happens when your queen dies. this was the hive that we installed the queen that was barely alive. we saw only a small amount of capped brood. Two super procedure cells. so if everything goes well according nature's rules a queen will merge and hive will return to normal. The bees have the last say.

New kitten

Patches
The new addition to the family