🐝💗Our Backyard Beekeeping Journey!💗🐝

[Apis mellifera]

I'm also trying to decide if my #1 hive swarmed and we completely missed it. Still so weird we only found one cell. There is a lot of brood and bees in there, as well as eggs and larvae. So even if they did, we're still in good shape.

It's not unusual for bees to replace a queen. I've had plenty of hives replace a queen that seem perfectly fine. This queen had a very nice brood pattern, and she was replaced.

Same cell after all the brood emerged and the new queen was laying eggs.

 

[drstratton]

It's not unusual for bees to replace a queen. I've had plenty of hives replace a queen that seem perfectly fine. This queen had a very nice brood pattern, and she was replaced. View attachment 4218827
Same cell after all the brood emerged and the new queen was laying eggs.View attachment 4218828

They definitely know better than we do what's best for the hive.

At least we will be starting out with a new queen next spring.

 

[5Australorpasaures]

When feeding the bees in the fall, do you refill as soon as they empty what you've given them? My girls can suck down a 2 quart jar in a few days. I'm also trying to decide if I should put 2 jars on. I want to make sure they have plenty of stores.

I had to back off when we were feeding them before summer, because they were storing it and becoming honey bound. I'd read and heard, give them as much as they want, plus we wanted to help them build comb. They always took what we gave them. It never seemed to slow down. We started giving them just 2 quarts per week.

I'm excited for next season. They've built out enough comb, so we will be able to stop feeding them as soon as the nectar flow starts. We still have quite a few that aren't drawn out. I plan on checkerboarding those in. Hopefully they will finish drawing out every frame we have next year.

My feeder is a 4 qt set up wrapped with a medium super, then top cover. The hardware cloth keeps the bees at bay while I change out the empties. I chk maybe 3-5 days and replace any that are empty. As of today, I have finished prepping 8 gallons of syrup with 3 now on the bees leaving the other 5 ready to go, and I will have to mix more as I go along. This way constant supply going to the bees. You would be surprised how fast they rip through it. I feed until I think their heat will no longer keep the syrup from freezing, swap to the block wrap the hives, see ya in the spring. I had one medium that wasn't completely drawn, spring I will take the least drawn and place them in the center and taper weakest to most drawn to outside.

 

[Apis mellifera]

Either way, you wouldn't have known it when you looked inside.

Tilt the top box up and look at the bottom of the frames and you'll see the swarm cells.

 

[Sally PB]

Today we checked on both hives. A few weeks ago, we put an empty deep on top of the Newbies, hoping that they'd draw a little comb in preparation for next year. They have a frame feeder in that box. They haven't done anything up there, but the feeder is empty. We'll be pulling that box so that they don't lose heat to an empty deep box over the winter. Oh well; they looked very full in the two deep brood chamber when we looked last time.

We checked the Charlatans, hoping for some goldenrod honey. Nope. One frame mostly full, a partial frame here and there. So, we're thinking since there is So. Much. Goldenrod! in bloom, we'll wait another week. They still have an excluder on, and we'd hoped to harvest some more honey this year. The bees are all over the goldenrod. The field is humming in places.

Instead of filling the super, we are assuming that they're packing it into the two deep brood chamber. We did not have time to look farther down, as we had to take a neighbor to the airport. I thought that we'd look into the top brood box after we emptied the honey super.

The boxes are heavy and awkward to lift, and hubby and I both feel better about taking out frames instead of lifting off the whole box.

We'll plan to spend more time the next time we look in on them.

 

[drstratton]

My feeder is a 4 qt set up wrapped with a medium super, then top cover. The hardware cloth keeps the bees at bay while I change out the empties. I chk maybe 3-5 days and replace any that are empty. As of today, I have finished prepping 8 gallons of syrup with 3 now on the bees leaving the other 5 ready to go, and I will have to mix more as I go along. This way constant supply going to the bees. You would be surprised how fast they rip through it. I feed until I think their heat will no longer keep the syrup from freezing, swap to the block wrap the hives, see ya in the spring. I had one medium that wasn't completely drawn, spring I will take the least drawn and place them in the center and taper weakest to most drawn to outside.

Thank you! This is very helpful.
Tapering sounds like a great way to start in the Spring.

I've seen how fast they can take that syrup down. It's pretty crazy. How many holes do you have in your lids? We have been using 2, but I have some with more. They were going through the multi holed jars way too fast.

We feed the same way, using 2 quart jars.

 

[drstratton]

Tilt the top box up and look at the bottom of the frames and you'll see the swarm cells.
View attachment 4218905

Thank you. That's a great picture. I will look again when I'm in there.

 

[drstratton]

Today we checked on both hives. A few weeks ago, we put an empty deep on top of the Newbies, hoping that they'd draw a little comb in preparation for next year. They have a frame feeder in that box. They haven't done anything up there, but the feeder is empty. We'll be pulling that box so that they don't lose heat to an empty deep box over the winter. Oh well; they looked very full in the two deep brood chamber when we looked last time.

We checked the Charlatans, hoping for some goldenrod honey. Nope. One frame mostly full, a partial frame here and there. So, we're thinking since there is So. Much. Goldenrod! in bloom, we'll wait another week. They still have an excluder on, and we'd hoped to harvest some more honey this year. The bees are all over the goldenrod. The field is humming in places.

Instead of filling the super, we are assuming that they're packing it into the two deep brood chamber. We did not have time to look farther down, as we had to take a neighbor to the airport. I thought that we'd look into the top brood box after we emptied the honey super.

The boxes are heavy and awkward to lift, and hubby and I both feel better about taking out frames instead of lifting off the whole box.

We'll plan to spend more time the next time we look in on them.

It's great that the boxes are heavy. That's what you want.

I think we will pull the supers off next week or the week after. I would like to see them fill the light frames in the deep boxes.

We will probably be able to keep feeding syrup until the end of October. That's when the temps usually start to dip in our neck of the woods.

 

[5Australorpasaures]

Thank you! This is very helpful.
Tapering sounds like a great way to start in the Spring.

I've seen how fast they can take that syrup down. It's pretty crazy. How many holes do you have in your lids? We have been using 2, but I have some with more. They were going through the multi holed jars way too fast.

We feed the same way, using 2 quart jars.
View attachment 4218990

I'll post a pic some time tomorrow as it would get pretty wordy.

 

[drstratton]

I'll post a pic some time tomorrow as it would get pretty wordy.

That sounds good. Thank you!