7/17
Pink – 5 frames drawn; 3 frames brood; queen with red mark seen
Green – 7 frames drawn; 5 frames brood; queen with red mark seen
Orange – 27 frames drawn; top box empty – removed; middle box 3 frames stores 5 frames brood and eggs; bottom box mostly empty some pollen and nectar; did not find queen but saw eggs
7/18
Muddy Pink – removed 3 boxes of comb placed on for cleaning after extraction. Bees had begun to store nectar in comb.
Super about 50% full of nectar. Top brood box full of honey. Middle brood box – no brood only spotty capped drone brood. Ended inspection before seeing final box to avoid robbing. Plan to inspect Cleopatra then move a frame of open brood from there if necessary and possible. Back up take brood from green.
Muddy Pink bearding while queenless
Observation hive – heard queen piping.
7/19
Yellow Green Cleopatra – removed 3 boxes of comb placed on for cleaning after extraction.
Last super is about 20% full of nectar, little capped honey. Plenty of brood in top box under the queen excluder. Moved one frame of eggs and young brood to Muddy Pink. Replaced with empty drawn comb.
Thyme for Bees!
Muddy Pink – added frame of young brood and eggs from Yellow Green. Hopefully they will requeen. Plan to check for queen cells next weekend.
Used tea towels to cover open boxes. Worked very well.
7/20
Observation hive – queens piping madly. Have heard 3 distinct simultaneous voices in the morning. Around 5:00 pm bees have balled and killed 1 queen and many bees are collecting as if to swarm.
7/22
2:30 observation hive swarmed. Swarm flew off in a northerly direction.
7:45 three queens running in the hive. A deep gold one that moves slowly, kinda chill; a striped one that moves quickly and pauses to pipe frequently; and a light one the moves rapidly and erratically.
Virgin just hanging out!
8:35 the bees are carrying the light one around, dead. Stripes still piping, chill still chilling!
7/23
Observation Hive – striped queen is dead at bottom of hive this am. No more piping. Haven’t seen a queen today. Fed one bottle 1:1 syrup.
Dead Striped Queen
7/25
Bottled honey. 51 lbs from the farm. 143 lb from the house. A total of 176 1 lb bottles available for sale. Yay!
Summer 2015 Honey Ready for Sale
Saw a varroa mite on a bee in the observation hive. 
Varroa!! Argh!
7/29
Went to the farm with Kristien. Set up 2 sections of the queen castle with brood and bees from my colony on the farm. Brought it home and placed it on top of Muddy Pink.
7/31
Going on vacation for a week. Preparing the colonies to survive the week of dearth.
Pink – fed 2 gallons 1:1 syrup
Green – fed 2 gallons 1:1 syrup
Orange – seem to have adequate stores; no additional feeding
Muddy Pink – still seem to be queenless but have more than adequate stores
Queen Castle – set up 3 section with brood from Green. Fed each section 1 quart 1:1 syrup.
Yellow Green – seem to have adequate stores; no additional feeding
Observation Hive – seems to be on the verge of starving. No stores, the queen is not laying. Fed a honey jar of 1:1 syrup. Hope that helps.
She survived but isn’t laying.