After the Rains

The last week's weather has been rainy, and overcast much of the time, neither conducive for bee flight nor bee inspection. Finally, though, yesterday was a pleasant enough day to go out and inspect the hives. It was mostly sunny, very little wind, and in the mid 70s.

During the last inspection, I suspected that Lib-BEE-taria was queenless. I placed a frame of brood in the hive hoping, if it was, that the bees would raise up a new queen. My hunch about this hive seems to have wrong. The bees are probably not queenless. They did not produce queen cells on this frame.

Both Worker Bees... and Bee Glad... hives seems fine. The bees are producing brood, there are signs of eggs, and the laying patterns are very good.

A Different Approach

I took a different approach to Lib-BEE-taria's queenlessness than I stated I would this morning. I took a frame of young open brood from one of the nucs and placed it in Lib-BEE-taria. If Lib-BEE-taria is truly queenless they will raise their own queen from the larvae provided. If they aren't queenless, I have not wasted a queen.

Queenless Lib-BEE-taria?

I inspected the three langstroth hives yesterday afternoon. While overall the temperature (upper 70s) and sun were pleasant, it was rather windy during the whole process.

First, I examined the 24 hour mite drop of each hive. Both Lib-BEE-taria and Worker Bees had less than 7 each, so I assumed they were doing fine. Bee Glad... had over 30 mites counted. This will demand further watching.

Both Worker Bees... and Bee Glad... are both doing good, good brood pattern, plenty of eggs, and very calm on the comb. (I did not see the queen however.) I cannot say the same for Lib-BEE-taria however. It had many signs of queenlessness. There were no eggs to be seen, just sparsely capped comb. The bees frantically headbutted me all throughout the inspection. Later that evening, as I examined the front entrance of the hive, I discovered a dead queen dumped to the ground.

This afternoon, I will be taking a queen from one of my nucs, caging her, and adding her to Lib-BEE-taria using the instructions for requeening found in the latest addition The ABCs and XYZs of Bee Culture.

Metpropolis Queenless?

I did some work in the beeyard today. I took off the honey supers (nothing really there) on both Lib-BEE-taria and Bee Glad... and dusted them with powdered sugar. I also switched out a drone brood frame in Lib-BEE-taria. I fed the Nuc To Be Named Later which seems to be doing well. Plan Bee... looks excellent as well, though I'll probably have to feed it a bit to get it ready for winter.

But Metpropolis... well... I am a bit concerned with this top bar hive. I kept pulling bars looking for either brood or a queen and saw neither. The workers didn't behave like they were queenless, but I saw no evidence of a laying queen otherwise. One hypothesis I have is that the hive swarmed recently and I missed that, though there are plenty of workers inside. I plan to watch this hive closely. Luckily, I do have that queen in the nuc, so it will not be hard to requeen the hive.