Update 8-10-17

6 active hives, 1 nominal and one trap out that probably will not workout this year.
Harvested 90lbs, extracted all. Still have some frames from last year yet to extract but will get to those on a slow day. LOL, not. Anyway, winding down and will need to harvest soon again. Will be a busy Sept , so not crossing my fingers, however will need to treat for mites soon.

Added additional honey supers on the 28th.

6-24-17 Never ceases to amaze me.

Check all hives to today except gnarly at orchard. However they seem active and well. The swarm I caught on June 10th has a decent amount of brood already. So happy about that. More though! The hive that over wintered and I added a swarm to and then a queen finally has brood! It had been literally several months without a queen. I was keeping bees in it my supplementing brood from a nearby hive. I didn't really see eggs but saw many different stages of brood. So happy about that. Noticed a few mites on brood of gardens hive, from original swarm from yard.

4-23-17 Visit

Added honey supers to two hives. One at vineyard and Sparrow's Nest. Swarm hive from yard was moved to SN and queen is laying well! Other hive there seems well and that was where I added on honey super. 72 degrees and very breezy.
Vineyard had yard split. Bees seem well, however did not see any queen cells, maybe one small one. Ferrel hive doing well. Took eggs and added to split. Also took eggs/brood and added to last years Italians that seemed queen less.
Came home and checked yard hive. Still not happy to see me, but they seem like they wanted queen out of cage. Took cork out and they had already eaten much much of the sugar block within cage. I'm sure she was out within the hour after. Crossing my fingers that she will do well and calm that hive down. Busy 90 minutes.

April Update

Much has happened this month. At the beginning of the month I had four hives left out of nine. The yard hive blew up with numbers and I knew I had to split.

To the day and the hour that I was going to split the hive this last Saturday they began to swarm. Very long story but to make it short I was able to capture them in a vacant hive in my own yard after they had been in our Pondarosa pine for several hours.

I did another split on that hive and the original hive still has a tremendous amount of numbers. I destroyed all the queen cells and introduced a queen box which while I will allow to accommodate with each other. Hopefully there won't be any trouble. This morning I moved that split and the swarm hive to two other locations in my other bee yards. It was 50° this morning so I lucked out and was able to move them both by myself. While destroying the queen cells in the original hive I maxed out my clothing and suit so as not to be stung by 10,000 bees. I feel it worked out pretty well considering I only got one sting on my neck below my chin. It was the first time I genuinely smelled the sting pheromone which smells like banana.

2-18-17 Visit

Visited orchard hive left, dead! Ugh, so frustrating. So both installs at Orchard died. Stopped by John's & Jayna's and both those hives seem busy. However the West hive may be just getting robbed, making it look like there were active. There were dead bees at top between frames but busy down below. Guess I'll have to see. I may check mid-week since it will be 70's for the next few days. Ive seen major budding on most trees! Could be a problem if we have a hard freeze. I did see North Hive bringing in pollen!

2-17-17 Visit to yard hive

Checked several frames. Not much honey left but lots of bees. Fed granulate sugar and solidified honey. They were slightly testy but not to burdensome.

Lots of dead bees at entrance. They are doing a good job at care taking.

Seemed all frames were this full.

Only checked several frames.

Late January

Checked and fed hives dry sugar and some solidified honey. Lost several hives since fall. Looking at 50/50 most likely.

1-18-17 Yard Hive

Was 50 degrees on the 18th. Was able to at least open up top cover and check the girls out. Fed with honey supplies. I'm sure they loved it! Hoping they continue to make it. Have not checked other hives since before the end of the year.

November 11 visit

Checked all bees at Vineyard and  Jayna's gardens. Fed them all half-and-half sugar and one cup of granulated sugar. Also fed one hive at home.

11-4-16 Visit

Fed orchard bees. They seem healthy and active. Will need to replace top cover on one and paint the other before next spring. Weak hive at home. Not sure if robbing is going on or just the minimal hive moving to and fro.
Video is from healthy home hive. Can't believe the weather. Enjoying while we can.

https://youtu.be/jqMyLPh3boc

11-4-16 Visit

Fed orchard bees. They seem healthy and active. Will need to replace top cover on one and paint the other before next spring. Weak hive at home. Not sure if robbing is going on or just the minimal hive moving to and fro.
Video is from healthy home hive. Can't believe the weather. Enjoying while we can.

https://youtu.be/jqMyLPh3boc

Plethora of information in no certain order.

In mid September I combined a couple hives and tried a split. The split failed within a week which included a new queen. It was worth a try but I think the percentages are low that it would work as late as it is in the season.
The following week Andrew Joseph came to inspect hives for myself and a couple other association members. Started treating for varroa and beetles at this time. (Sept 22nd-25th)
Before treating I removed all honey supers and frames to be harvested this year.
In the last couple weeks I've started to supplement feed with sugar water mixed with after honey from bees wax preparation.
Today decided to reseed hives at the someplace. Unfortunately had my first CCD hive. No bees and almost all robbed out. I did notice about three days ago some flies at the entrance so that should have been a clue.
Here's some pics/video.

It's been way to long

I'm not going to go into it but a lot has happened since the last time I posted. And at some point I will jot down what I did about a month ago. But for now here's today's visit.

Checked yard hives vineyard hives and gardens hives. Three quarters of them have a decent amount of hive beetles. I would be taking care of that in the next couple weeks and treating. I was able to harvest about another hundred pounds of honey. Most hives today were in a decent mood, the gnarliest probably was the furthest east hive in the vineyard. There is an in enormous  amount of bees and that hive. So next step is to visit the orchard hives and just start treating for varroa mites and hive beetles. Here's some pics.

WTH?

Big ass spider(garden variety.)

You can see the mites on the brood.

6-6-16

Added sugar water and fed Orchard Bees. They seemed very docile.

Sapp Bros Swarm 5-23-16

Got a call to pick up a swarm at Sapp Brothers.  Capture went well and I placed in split hive at Vineyard.

5-27-16 Visit To Last Packages

It's bee nearly two weeks since this install. It seems the gals are doing well. I supplement fed them once again. Both beeswax honey and sugar syrup.
Lookie look at this beautiful brood and eggs.