The four hives are rocking it!
May 14, 2020
Apiary looking northeast to the San Gabriels
May 9 and 13, 2020
We are heading out to the apiary today and we knew we needed a queen so we picked one up from our friend Jay Weiss. He is right in Pasadena and we cannot go to the nursery on Sundays so we really need one today.
We first opened the Cecilio hive which is now two boxes high. Since we had treated with oxalic acid last week I pulled out the bottom board only to find that earwigs love to get in the sections between the papers. So there were a ton of them under our top cover and I can only guess that the bees chased them up there.. It’s always startling to see them scurrying around. Yuk!
We were going to treat with oxalic drip for two more weeks so we did not do a mite test. Everything look fabulous: tons of bees, larva, capped brood, no hive beetles. I did see one wax moth on the inspection board but hopefully it was just one because I didn’t see any evidence in the hive. Jeff applied another oxalic drip down the seams of the frames and then we closed everything up. (Note: this is the only hive that has an Italian queen.)
We then went to the Leno hive which is a second year hive. This is the hive that showed no larva or eggs since the last time we inspected and we could not find the queen. Again this week, no queen and no evidence of a queen and only one or two queen cups so they were being slow to raise their new queen. This is good news. This hive is loaded with honey in fact it was so loaded I had to have Jeff help me lift off the top box! It’s going to be a good year for the Bees with surplus for The Beekeepers! After looking extensively for the queen, we installed the new “Pol line” queen in the queen cage. She will stay in there for three days and then we will return and release her. By then, her pheromones will be accepted by the Bees and she will begin her reign. We think that since there was no brood to take care of, the bees were bringing in nectar and making honey.
I then checked the nucleus hive which Jeff installed a two weeks ago. That little hive with five frames was so active that now, two weeks later, I decided to put on a second box. We found the “Buzz Landon” Italian queen and then avoided that frame as Jeff put the oxalic drip on the others. It’s so exciting to have these three exceptional hives. I am going to call this new hive “Paloma 3” after our sweet friend at the nursery. Unfortunately the last two years, the hives named Paloma did not make it.
Jeff’s hive is now three boxes high and it overwintered from last year.. This has been a very aggressive hive with a feral queen so Jeff got a new “Pol line” queen two weeks ago and requeened it with this more gentle breed of bee.  Although the pheromone from the queen drives the activity of the hive, her gentle genetics will also help. We won’t know for quite a while because the eggs that she’s laying now will take 21 days to develop and hatch out.
His three boxes looked great and he has been experimenting with a shop towels soaked with oxalic acid to control mites. He reported good larva, good brood, honey and tons of nectar.
It’s the start of a good year we hope! If we do our job well, the bees will rock it!
Wednesday, May 13. Released the queen in Leno.