It has been a long long while since I have posted last. Mainly because I have had more activity in my life than a Charlie Sheen neuron.
I went out to visit the hives in early March. All of them were strong in population except for one which had a crucial flaw in their population management plans. The queen was shooting blanks into her six sided nursery cells and as a result my comb looked like my Light Bright toy from years past. Hundreds of little bullet shaped drone cells were protruding from the comb where the vital female variety of honeybee was desired.
Despite this, it looked like I had the better of the two infertile queen scenarios. If it was a laying worker (No Hope Scenario) there would be eggs scattered all over the comb in random layout because laying workers don’t have the same laying discipline as full fledged queen. Finding the false queen would be impossible because she is a worker like the other 30,000 + bees in the hive. However these eggs were clustered tight together in a solid brood pattern albeit of male offspring. In China this might be a good thing but in the bee world this is a disaster since the drones do nothing but sit around eat, sleep, and well…you know the rest.
But because the real queen was present I might have a chance to reverse the trend by replacing the queen with a new one. Unfortunaly it was early March and there was nary a bee breeder willing to ship out a new queen to me so my next best bet was to order a new package and hoped it arrived in time before my hive turned into Delta fraternity from Animal House.
In the meantime I gave the bees an early dose of watered down sugar to spur their population forward.
It must be noted. The middle hive, despite its queen problem looked strong and healthy. The other hives likewise. Not once did I feed any of my girls any form of pesticide, miticide, or any other kind of herbal colonic to shield them from natures barbs. I have seen no varroa mites in the hive or any sign of the tracheal mite. I attribute this to superb genetics of the bee which are supposedly bred from survivor stock only and are not treated with medications by the breeder. However these bees are still some real bastards to work with. Very temperamental and like The Hulk, quick to anger. But I guess this is what is needed to survive in nature’s crucible. Those who are the meanest, toughest, and hardiest will survive. These bees were purchased from Bee Weaver apiaries.
As May arrived my middle colony had dwindled to nothing. There were just a few slacker drone bees sitting out front of the porch(bottom board) with a small skeleton crew of workers running the operation. I also received notice from my breeder that because of the drought in Texas, not to mention the fire storms, my shipment would be late. This is the death notice for that colony but by the time the package arrives at least the hive will be empty and the new residence will have a clean house to work with, with all of the furniture already laid out for them.
Such is the life of a beekeeper. On a fun note I will be doing a beekeeping demo for my daughter’s pre-school. I even will bring in a fresh frame of Grade A honey for the children to sample.
