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I am hoping for some swarm calls this year. I have been doing this long enough to know I need more than two backyard hives. Last year I caught two swarms from being on our swarm call list. My main goal this year is to increase to four to six hives.

Donna and I looked for a queen today in the hive without brood and did not see one. We took a frame of eggs and larvae from the queenright hive and placed it in the queenless hive, as you suggested. There were drone walking around and no sign of laying worker. I am feeding 1:1 and pollen patty (thou...

I expected a hive with 1 deep and 2 mediums yesterday. The top box had capped honey, pollen, and nectar. The other two had splotchy capped honey. There were lots of bees in each box, but no brood anywhere. I have not looked closely for a queen yet. I see brood in the other hive. Does the fact that t...

The reason I do pollen patties is I was taught that pollen in February will stimulate laying. I am planning (hoping if strong enough) to do splits this spring. I want the hives busting with numbers so that I can split them.

I inspected my weaker hive today. It has two mediums. The top box had capped brood on each frame surrounded by capped honey and nectar. I did not see any drone brood or drones. I found the queen and marked her. The bottom box had only splotches of capped honey and empty cells on each frame. So I swa...

I took a quick look inside my two hives. I pulled a few frames only. I saw a little nectar on one frame, but I had a sugar cake on that hive. I don't know if they turn the solid sugar to nectar? I did a tip-up swarm check, but it may be too early for swarm cells. On one hive I found many SHBs on the...

I just now watched mine for about 10 minutes. A lot of pollen is being brought in, some of which may be olive in color. What plant does that olive-green color come from? Does the blooming red maple mean the flow has begun?

I will go out today and take a quick look inside my hives.

Next week will have some warm days and I will look into my hives as well. If I find my two hives are strong, as I suspect, how early can I do splits on them? Do I want to wait until I see drones? The Accuweather 45 day forecast shows night lows for February in the 40s with some nights in mid to low ...

Have any of you read /Fifty Years Among The Bees by Charles C. Miller? It was recommended to me by Dana Stahlman who presented to us on early spring splits. I am about 50 pages into it and am having doubts about it. It is OLD, OLD, OLD, written in 1915 so far mostly about the authors experience with...

When do ya'll replace foundation? I have replaced so much this fall/winter that I am tired of it. Does color matter? I read somewhere it doesn't. The foundation in the picture is not even 4 years old![attachment=0]20241223_152922.jpg

I found The Dana Stahlman powerpoint on a vertical split very helpful. Thank you. He talks about removing from the mother hive two frames of eggs, larvae, brood with resources, one frame of honey and pollen, and one frame of drawn brood. That is 4 frames total. I have 8-frame boxes. When do I add th...

I am seeing conflicting information on the minimum treatment temperature for OAV vaporization. This article (2nd study) states that efficacy is independent of temperature: https://frankthebeeman.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/NJBA-volume-34-issue-2-pages-21-23-1.pdf Other places and studies indicate...

February will be here before we know it. What is the best way for me to learn (step by step) how to do these splits? Any classes involving splits coming up? Demonstration at our January GCBA meeting? Video links to share?

Yes, as Jacobs said I am in this broodless club too. It seems to be widespread from these posts. I have not used any Formic Pro but both of my two remaining hives were broodless upon my October inspection. I looked for the queen, but there were so many bees on each frame of each box that I could hav...

Thanks, I have decided to check and put that box back on the hive...it has so many bees.

I have an OA vaporizer wand and OA. How much OA should I use per hive?

The hive with the deep and two mediums, no problem. I removed the empty deep (drawn out empty frames) and set it out in front of it's hive. By sunset all the bees in the deep went into the hive. No problem. The next hive I inspected had a deep and 3 mediums. I found in the deep and one of the medium...

I just did my final inspection and I'm not seeing any pollen stored on any frames. Should I add pollen patties this time of year?

I just inspected one of my last two remaining hives to test for Varroa. This is the one with no mites in July. There were 25 mites today or 8.3%. I was looking for brood frames from which to collect my sample and found absolutely no brood on any frames. Does that sound like a problem this time of ye...

Of the two hives that were being robbed, I lost one to robbing. I was a day or two late taking down the dead out and getting the frames into the freezer, so when I pulled them out of the freezer today I initially thought the frozen larvae I saw that had emerged from the frames was wax moth larvae, t...