I caught a swarm of bees, 5 frames full. I just threw 160 bucks away and I caught the swarm.
I got the bees from the guy I was worried about. He seems ok.
The nuc was marked “Mn Q”. So hopefully it’s not a scam. There was not a lot of covered brood in the nuc. But that actually comforts me. I let him keep the bees an extra week. So most of the brood that came from texas would be hatched, I would think. It’s been 2 weeks since they left Tx.
The bees seemed healthy. I did by an alcohol wash kit. A Tupperware dish with a strainer you put a 1/2 cup of bees and swish.
I also bought some hops guard strips. They should be here in a few days.
I will bathe some bees before use the strips.
I went through every frame today.
The package bees seem to be doing ok. Not as well as I would like but they are putting up some honey. I don’t think there is any danger of a swarm there.
The full hive of Russian bees are doing amazing. They had brood and honey, lots of honey. It appears the queen is laying in the bottom box right now. There were about 3-4 empty sides of frames or at least not honey or capped. I can not see eggs real well wearing a hood... or without cheaters on.
The top box had maybe 5 sides not filled. But all the frame sides had some honey. There was more capped honey than I expected. When I removed the top deep, I found it to be a lot heavier than I expected.
a couple days ago I put a medium super on it after my quick inspection because I was worried about them getting over crowded.
I am glad I did. There was no honey in the med super. However, the frames were all simply foundation. They are building comb on it.
Quite a few bees working in the medium super.
This should all be good honey as I never fed this hive.
All the pictures are from the Russian Bees.
I hope they are different frames. My photography is not real great.