Yesterday was dedicated to inspecting all the nucs, the swarm we caught the day before, the new hive set up last week from one of my other nucs, and Bee Glad... .
The four nucs I looked into were teeming with bees. They were getting to the point of overcrowding, and, thus, possible swarming. I removed a frame of capped brood from each 5 frame nuc (without attached adult bees) and set them aside, suspecting that the newest hive might just need some strengthening. By Friday all these nucs should be in hives on the Kendall farm if all goes as planned.
The swarm Monta, Joyce, Paul and I caught the day before was placed, branch and all, in an empty cardboard nuc that night. I retrieved the branch and channel locks yesterday, put in 4 more frames and opened up the entrance. I am surprised how fast the bees build comb sometimes, as the swarm was already building comb on the cardboard inner cover. This swarm also goes to the Kendall farm.
The inspection of the newest, nameless hive (hint! hint! readers) indicated, as I suspected, a rather weak hive. So I placed the capped brood from the nucs into it.
Bee Glad... is probably my strongest hive. It contains a large population of adult bees, plenty of brood in all stages, and good deal of pollen and nectar. It must be reversed fairly soon.
Today, I inspected Lib-BEE-taria, and Worker Bees.... I will have to admit that I was wrong about Lib-BEE-taria. The hive is not queenless but does contain a laying queen as is evident from eggs and young larvae in a number of drawn frames. Perhaps this hive superseded their previous queen and the new queen needed sometime to mate and lay eggs.
Worker Bees of the World Unite is strong. They are storing nectar into the honey super, using all three boxes for a nursery, and are, gentle to beat! This hive will need to be reversed soon as well.
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