Mite Treatment and Expansion

The hive that I split a few days ago had varroa mites so in addition to adding another brood box I also treated them. This will go on for about 4 weeks but should eradicate most of the mites. Not harmful to humans at all they can be devastating to the honeybee hive and can weaken them greatly if they get out of hand.
It was about 68 degrees and all the apple trees have been blooming for about 10 days.

The Split

The temperature was 55° while making the hive split. Original hive has phenomenal numbers but many drones. I could not find the queen in original hive so it's hard to tell at this point which hive has original queen with the new queen. Got stung on left calf as a worker made its way up from my boot. I deserved it. Established the split down south near Vineyard at the antique and gardens store named The Swallows Nest.

Decision To Split Hive

One of my orchard hives has tremendous spring numbers and I didn't really have time to look at it fully until today. Temperature was 65 degrees with a light breeze. Lots of capped brood and an inordinate number of drone chambers. A sure sign of possible swarming hints as well as queen  possibility of going bad.  So with that being said I placed a queen excluder between bottom two brood boxes and placed another deep on top with mostly capped brood from below on top as well. I have two queens coming and will plan on moving the split soon.

Swarm Season Is Almost Upon Us

Please stay vigilant for any swarms of honeybees you see that are wild. Call me as soon as you find them so I can round them up and help them survive.

4-12-15

Day after installation.

These ladies have released their queens and are already bringing in pollen! There is a nice consistent hum, as they are keeping their hive cool in this 80° day.