Tuesday, August 10, 2010

90, humid yesterday.

Still no evidence of a queen in Edinburgh. London still producing eggs, and various stages of larva and capped brood observed. No comb drawn in the supers yet.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Rumors

Heard from a coworker that a hivekeeper-friend in St Paul is reporting similar swarming problems.

All Hail the Queen


90s, humid, sporadic rain.

New queen cleanly hatched out of Edingburgh, the rest of the frames are mostly capped honey (scraped one open by accident during inspection) and past brood cells rapidly being filled. Not sure if new queen will be able to hatch much brood before fall.

London still has eggs, and a queen. Lots of activity but no comb in supers.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Absconded!


Steamy, high 80's.

Edinburgh swarmed today; lost about half the hive. Opened the hive to find five swarm cells and a supercedure cell. No queen, some capped brood but no eggs. Destroyed the swarm cells, left the supersedure cell to allow the a new queen to start over. Will check next week, will attempt to requeen if there are no eggs soon.

Swapped honey supers over to London, who is still producing eggs and capped brood. Now has 7/10 frames filled in the top deep.

Monday, July 19, 2010

More activity in both hives. London up from 5 frames to around 6.5... still going to wait a week to dump on their super. Edinburgh bees moving about their supers, but no foundation built yet.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Strange Beehavior

Bees absolutely insane today. Steady columns of them rising from and circling the hive from 10:30 to around 11. My amateur (and likely ignorant and wrong) guess would be a recent brood doing their orientation flights.

Warm, 80's, humid, chance of rain today.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Swarming with Life


High 70's, still rather humid, sunny.

Finally found one of the bee hotspots; a solid clump of Butterflyweed that has also attracted its share of native bees as well as Monarchs and Red Admirals. Things in the hives pretty much the same. Briefly checked London to see if it was ready for deeps; it is still about a frame and a half short. Plenty of egg production. Edingburgh has not begun drawing out its supers yet.