The Honey Factory

[Apis mellifera]

Rainy and cold here. Made two splits last week to stop swarming, bees are moving forward in spite of the weather. I'll have to split the overwintered nucs this week. Drones are starting to fly now but Im just not feeling the queen rearing yet until we start getting better weather.

Took out the push in cage Thursday, all good in the saved nuc.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

I hear you about overwintered Nucs getting very crowded. The ones that didn't run low on stores are booming! That's where I got the brood to boost things. Only took a frame from each and added a box for expansion. Those nuc stacks will be the back bone of queen rearing and started colonies in the next two months.

I also lost a queen this winter. No idea why but I was concerned about spring dwindle. My horizontal came out of winter with 9 frames of bees then went to 5 then to 3 before I opened it up to find queen less. Moved a starving nuc colony that had a queen and handful of bees left into it.