I got up bright and early this morning, closed off the queen castle, packed up the nucs and castle and took off for the out yard.  I got to the yard to find that Kristien had done an excellent job at leveling and making secure the two pallets I had dropped off yesterday.  Not sure how you did that, Kristien!

I missed the memo (as in didn’t read email before I left) that there was only space for one colony.  I set up the nucs with food but didn’t open them yet.  I wanted to see if it seemed that robbing was going to be an immediate issue.  This time the vent space that leads to the feeders is in the back of the box so maybe robbing won’t be quite the issue it was.

Then back to Thurmont to get some blocks to put the castle on.  I’m planning on setting up another pallet but it’s Sunday and I don’t have access to any today.  The one I have at home is not strong enough to hold both bees and beekeepers!

Upon my return, the nucs looked good there were a few bees flying around the vent but no activity at the entrances.

I set up the castle on blocks temporarily.  Here’s a picture of the out yard when I left:

On to the inspection:

The right side (as viewed from the rear) of the castle was sad.  The queen cell had hatched but there was no sign of the queen at all.  The population of the hive was about 75% drones, 25% workers.  They had no stores, apparently robbed out entirely.  I decided to shake the bees off the frames into the grass in front of the hive, close the side entrance and remove the divider between this compartment and the center.  Now the center has 6 frames.

The center seems to be going strong.  They have good stores and have polished out an area in anticipation of a laying queen. I was unable to check the swarm cell for hatching as I didn’t bring a smoker and they were looking pretty bothered.  I didn’t see a queen but feel the bees have confidence that one is coming soon.

The left side (as viewed from the rear) was on the sad side of things.  The population was better but not great.  The queen cell had not hatched so I removed the protector with the cell for autopsy once I returned home.  The bees have begun a queen cell.

I am very unclear where the egg for this cell came from.  Would a worker lay a single egg in a last ditch effort?  You can see that the cells surrounding the queen cell do not have eggs in them.  Hmmm.

I placed syrup on each colony, opened the entrances to the nucs and two sections of the castle that still have bees, placed bricks on the top of each and left.  Hopefully peace will prevail!

Now the autopsy:

In this picture, you can see the underdeveloped larva in the queen cell (I think this was the cell that appeared to have royal jelly left over.  It was larva.)

And here’s the most telling part of the autopsy:

VARROA!  I found this little monster running on the cell wall shortly after I opened it.  I killed it before I took the picture.

Questions:

1.  Did we keep track of which nurse colony our cells came from.  I know all 4 of mine came from the deep.  Who has cells from the medium?  Is there a survival difference between the two?

2.  Should we have been feeding honey and pollen to the nurse colonies to improve nutrition?

Lessons:

1.  Take a smoker to the out yard.  If you don’t, you may not be able to complete everything you wanted to do!

2.  Varroa are harmful to the queen rearing process.