Today was a relatively warm day after a few weeks of cold. Temp here in LIbertytown was 50, so I checked to see which hives were still buzzing. This is the score: my yard:
1.Allen’s nuc: died (I think this queen was not very suited for this area, there was never a good buildup of brood and the nectar collections was not robust)
2. Split from Mel, created before we started any of our queen rearing: doing well. Living in a deep.
3. Hive with Lisa, used for queen rearing round 3, wintered with Bill last year. Doing well. Feels heavy. 3 mediums.
4. Topbar hive, dark green: alive, but very light (swarm from Allen).
5. Topbar hive, light green: alive, but very light (swarm from Allen).
6. George hive, from split from uniontown. doing well, good stores. 3 mediums.
7. Q3 George: 2 deep 5 frame nuc boxes stacked. Very active, not a lot of stores.
8. Q3 George: 2 deep 5 frame nuc boxes stacked. Very active, not a lot of stores.
at the farm:
9 lost Q1 to a late season swarm
10. lost Q2 early december, was without any activity today.
11. Hive with Cleopathra, early spring split from Mel. Living in single deep. Active, but not a lot of honey stores.
It looks like none of us have any of the q1 or q2 queens left. Those must not have been reared well. Let’s hope for better for next year!
ps. Liz’ hive at the farm was very busy!.
I have a Sally 2 and a Georgia 2 ( from a package). In fact, the Sally is in the hive that we used to build up the Q1. I had been worried about that hive, but it came back. These are both daughters raised naturally, not grafted. Hmmm.
I agree with Todd. It seems that our grafted queens are not up to the job. Thinking back to some of the very small sizes of the queen cells, I am going to try for much more nurse bees next year, and more feeding of these nurse bees before we give them the larva. I think the queens do not have enough royal jelly when they start out. The Q1 cells were much bigger, and the one Q1 that I have made a ton of bees, collected a deep of honey, but unfortunately, swarmed in late august. These bees did not manage to make a new queen after that.