Lisa was a beautiful big orange queen that arrived in my yard in early spring of 2012 with a good size swarm. Jan was picking gooseberries and saw it go into my dark green topbarhive. I moved the comb into a deep. Hoping for success, I opened the hive 2 weeks later, only to find 2 frames with queen cells: supercedure in action. Since it was spring and I liked the looks of Lisa so much, I set up each frame with it’s own hive. Lisa’s daughters wintered very successfully with me that year. The next year was the small hive beetle disaster. Lisa 2 therefor moved to McKinstry Mill Road for the summer, and build up well. As I moved to Seattle, she wintered with Bill and came back to my yard this spring.
George started as a swarm in the same year, but was a bit more bland looking. Very productive though, filling boxes rapidly with brood. I gave George to a friend in Uniontown later that summer. He did not do much with the hive but observe it. I kept adding boxes. George wintered with him and I brought some swarm cells from George back to our yard in 2013 for some splits, but that failed. George wintered again with my friend and this spring, I made another split, taking the mother with me rather than eggs. She came home to Liberty in early april. Neither hive has ever been fed or treated.
Meet Lisa and George:
Great background! So Lisa 2 is Lisa’s daughter, born in 2012, so is two years old. Is that right?
George 1 is two or maybe three years old, so won’t be with us much longer. You can probably expect a supersedure this year.
Surviving through two winters is perhaps the most important factor we are looking for with hygienic behavior second.