#nucs

At the plantation - brought Freya with me today. 

Hive 1 still doing good. Checkerboarded two frames in each of the top two boxes. Hive 3 is still not as strong as 1 but they are looking good and I did see the queen. Both showed evidence of laying queens, so I’m not worried there. Really neither has the strongest or most consistent brood pattern, though. I did not feed 3 again. 1 still has capped honey and both have significant nectar. In 3 I did a bit of checkerboarding, but not as much as I would have because the queen was close to where I was working. Did switch the bottom box to the top on 3. I am taking one empty medium home and I want to make a medium nuc maker. I need to make deep ones too but if I want to split these hives then I need a medium size one as well.

Our local bee association had a field trip to learn how to install nucs (starter sets of bees), into their hives. My mom is in the pink and my husband is in the jean jacket. The top three pics are of me.

“Alexa, Order Honey Bees.”

This is the post to read if you ever wondered how beekeepers get their bees.  January and February are the months when astute beekeepers place their orders for the bees they need in the spring.  Hopefully established beekeepers won’t need to order bees because their colonies survived the winter.  Sometimes an established beekeeper will still order new bees because they want to expand or they want…