All beekeepers experience highs and lows and
frustration. It goes with the
hobby. For me it’s no exception. I just completed my second hive inspection for
the season and saw wide variations in the conditions in the hives.
On the plus side I was able to capture four swarms during
May. Actually I captured two swarms and
two others captured themselves by occupying vacant equipment. One of the swarms was so strong it is already
putting a little honey in a super. You
can’t beat that. Also on the plus side
is the fact that some hives are putting honey in the supers. During hive inspections I keep a rough count
of filled frames of honey and estimate about 9 gallons of honey so far and the
flow hasn’t really gotten underway yet.
On the minus side I had four hives that swarmed. In theory the source hives will have a
lessened potential for making surplus honey while their populations
recover. You also must monitor those
hives to make sure that they successfully re-queen themselves. Statistically about 1 in 4 does not
successfully re-queen. That fact
reinforces the need to continue making hive inspections every other week so you
can remedy those hives that do not re-queen before they start having laying
workers.
My few replacement packages did not arrive until early
May. At my first hive inspection all
packages were queenright. However,
during the second inspection I noted one new package had lost its queen and had
five supercedure cells (also called emergency cells) in process to raise a
replacement queen. I hope this is not a repeat
of last year when two thirds of my packages superceded in the spring and
summer. In fact only one of nine
packages from last year has its original queen.
That’s not a good commentary on
the US queen rearing industry.
Most overwintered hives have successfully turned the corner
and growing. However, during May I had
two hives that must have lost their queen and slowly dwindled away. Several others have gone queenless, but have
supercedure cells. Whether they will
recover in time to produce any honey is questionable. In
June I will restock these hives with homegrown nucs. The best that can be done now is to start
these hives anew to get them ready for next winter.
As most of you know I dabble in queen raising. I was able to raise a few in April, but May
was a bust. To make matters worse my
Ankle Biter breeder queen died. I have a
few of her daughters in nucs and am hoping they successfully mate. I will carry on with raising queens from her
daughters. Hopefully with warmer weather
the survival rate of the queen cells will improve. I will also be raising a few Russian and
Saskatraz queens.
We are now going into June.
I see that clover and black locust trees are beginning to bloom. I am ready to add honey supers as the bees
bring in the nectar. In my area, June
through mid-July provides the majority of the honey flow for the year.
At this point I am behind the curve. The boom in bee populations also results in a
boom in varroa. I will need to get out
to monitor and control varroa populations.
Remember to only use formic acid or oxalic acid treatments while the
honey supers are on the hive. Other mite
control products will contaminate your honey.
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