Busy week.

Had a call 6 days ago about a small swarm near the Dodge House. Come to find out, very small and most likely lost their queen. Extracted from tailgate of a pickup with a brush and sugar water and sucked up the rest with a bee vacuum setup. Installed small swarm at a local vegetable farm and antique shop property. Did supplement with a decent sized frame of brood, eggs, and uncapped larvae. Will have to see what happens.

Added deep box on another package. Almost all packages have double brood boxes. Took 5 more small honey frames from one of the vineyard hives of which the girls weren't happy and sent a kamakazee bee down my back pocket. Yep, it smarted! 

6-22-14

Checked on vineyard bees, specifically a package of which had to make their own queen the last few weeks. Last time I had checked, no eggs. Today lucked out on this lightly breezy day around 78 degrees.  Found new eggs. Checked other packages and one large established hive.  Will need to add deep brood boxes soon on packages. Added a deep on orchard wild hive last week.

Busy 6-11-14 check

All hives had brood and most had visible eggs. High 70's with light breeze. Main reason checking was to change out any honey frames that were full and check on new packages and wild hive. 

One package at vineyard seems to have lost the queen. Seems they are in route to make their own queen. Did harvest a full honey super of honey from one established hive at vineyard. Other established hive at orchard seemed strong but oddly spaced brood pattern in some frames but not all. Will be watching closely.

6-7-14

Visited all hives today. Checked on viability of all new packages. Good build out on all comb with eggs and larvae. Wild hive and established colonies all doing well.

While leaving Prairie Hawk Vineyards stopped by the Swallow's Nest, Jayna's Country Store & Gardens. Delivered a few jars of our Loess Hills Honey Company, honey for her to sell. Check out the store with a lot of vintage antiques and fresh produce. Yummie!

Current view of wild and one new package area.

My helper for this afternoon.

May 31st additional queen excluder and check-up

Checked on bees this day and found that Parkwood hive queen did indeed start laying eggs! That's a big yeah and relief. Other new package at orchard seemed to be doing well and the workers let their queen out and was able to spot her and take photos. She also was laying a good number of eggs.
Established hive is brimming full of bees. Added excluder and added another honey super. Other photos are from a hike the following day in the Loess Hills in Hitchcock Nature Preserve.

If you look closely you can see the eggs in the cells.

Nice looking queen.

Mr. Dung beetle

Cousin bee.

Snail mail

Looking closely

The Lodge

Queen excluders and new bees

Went to vineyard tonight to add queen excluders to two of the old hives. A plethora of workers makes me happy and happier I added additional honey supers on those hives. Released one queen while other two new hives already had released their own. There must be close to or exceeding 50,000 bees in two original hives. Will have to monitor closely.

May 25th Installation

 Temps this morning.

Previously installed wild swarm box.

It was a very interesting install day. Alex and I had 4 packages to install this morning. Started foggy and about 65 degrees but very quickly was at 70 and already becoming very humid.

I had already installed a wild swarm a few days ago and wanted to recheck while we installed one package at orchard. So while setting up area after trimming some grass I moved one of the concrete blocks that make up the platform for where the new bees will be sit. Moved 2x6 to uncover the hole in block and low and behold about 40-50 bees were underneath. This was quite unexpected and I moved very slowly while moving block. The wild swarm you see in the above photo is about 16' away from this area. A bunch were on the underneath part of the board. I took those and placed them in front of "Parkwood" hive. Went back over and looked very closely only to find the Queen bee. Astonished that I had found her and she looked in good shape and was just right there. Anyway, slowly placed her into wild swarm hoping that she was indeed their queen and all will be good. Time will tell.

Otherwise, we installed all packages, one at orchard and 3 at vineyard. Also took out last of the feeders at other established hive near barn. I may have to add other supers on top as they look to be getting very full of bees already!