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The Apiary is growing.

6/8/2014

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  Most packages and nucs are doing well. A couple of the packages superseded within four days of releasing the queens. I allowed them to go for it, and those queens are now laying. One of the nuc's decided to supersede? A dozen cells that were all over the place. From the top of the frame to the bottom bar..   I took advantage of the extra cells and made up a few nucs a bit early. I will replace those queens with my own choice/raised queens in another week or two. I will raise a few queens from the VSH queens I installed.  Of the five, I have 4 laying well and growing like mad. As of the last inspection the 5th was no where to be found. No eggs or young larvae in the hive. She was marked and clipped, so not sure what happened to her. I checked the hive again yesterday. Capped brood was emerging, and still no eggs or young brood. After a very thorough search I installed one of the queen cells in the hive. I will also replace this queen, but she will get some brood going while quality queens are raised and mated.

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Twenty six hives at the home yard. Getting too many. When new queens are mated and laying I will move several to outyards, keeping 15 or so at this yard. I like to keep the younger hives and nuc's here so I can keep a better eye on them.

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I moved these two IN from an outyard, swapping out two I had here with them. A lot of bees, but they also seem to have a lot of mites.  I am finding four and five mites per drone cell. They got treated the moment they arrived with OA Vapor. They will get treated twice more, and by then I will be raising queens to replace these queens with. These hives were two I inherited on a purchase of equipment, so they need a bit of TLC to get them in line with the rest of my hives. Despite the mite load they have quite a bit of nectar and honey, but DWV and other problems tell me that a crash is imminent if I do not take steps to save them.

   We have had a decent spring, with good amounts of rain. A good flow is still in progress. New hives are building up rapidly, old hives are bringing in the resources in leaps and bounds. I have no complaints about the spring weather to this point. With luck it will be a great year!
   Swarms seem to be eluding me. I get calls, but within minutes the swarms dissipate and move on, usually well before I get there. I have managed to get eyes on one swarm so far this year, but as I arrived and began to prepare to catch them, they took to the skies...  Swarm traps have been infective so far as well. I am wondering if making them larger was the wrong thing to do? I also have a feeling that the loss of so many feral hives this winter has left some excellent hive sites open for the taking, and that most nearby swarms are heading for those sites as fast as they can get there.
   I have two appointments to give estimates for cut outs. With luck I will get those jobs and be able to add a couple more hives. With more luck I can get my Camera operator up to snuff and get a good Vid of it!
    I hope Spring has been good to you and your bees!
   Scott
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