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Wednesday, September 1, 2010

WHAT were they THINKING???

remember a couple blogs ago...what do you call a swarm in AUGUST? what i suspected was CONFIRMED today.

monday, we harvested the supers off the hives....VERY GOOD harvest by the way. the CLEARING BOARDS (bee mazes) that i got were WORTH $8 EVERYDAY - ANYDAY - ANYTIME. put those on 3 or 4 days before harvest and the bees clear the supers! WOW!!!

now...back to my suspicions...
i thought the august swarm issued from "HESTIA"....'cause when i hived them - some seemingly went back "home".

now that the supers are off and i could inspect things....HESTIA (the mother hive) was INDEED WITHOUT QUEEN. here's the question again: WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? the swarm issued with the ONLY QUEEN?!???! there weren't any swarm cells or superscedure cells....NOTHING - NO CHANCE!

i verified the QUEEN was in the swarm have (not yet named). SO - HERE'S THE RESTACK (from the bottom board up). QUEEN DEEP, newspaper, queen excluder (even though they might still "know" each other? why take a chance), HESTIA bottom deep, HESTIA top deep...and covered.

when i get back home - i'm going to start this hive on sugar syrup. they had quite a bit in the HESTIA top deep...but the sugar syrup also gives them additional INCENTIVE to stay.

the population is not BAD....but it's going to be the "weakest" of all of them going in. (to winter)

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