Guilfordbeekeepers.org

Noticed 4 drones in our strongest hive Sunday. Very excited about that. This is our Russian Hive. It has stayed about 10 frames all winter long. Excited to see what the early spring holds for these ladies.

I saw my first drone crawling on my concrete driveway pad this afternoon. It looked good except for the 2 varroa mites it was carrying. I normally have a number of fully formed drones that cannot fly before I start seeing drones that can fly.

Nice!!

I saw a few drones flying from and back into my most active hive at the house this afternoon. The others are not sending out drones yet, but I take it as a hopeful sign of spring.

My bees are doing orientation and bathroom flights this morning. I saw a drone flying. I don't know if it is one that overwintered or if one of my stronger hives is producing them. I hope it is a sign that winter is just about done.

I am definitely seeing drones flying from and returning to my two strongest hives at the house. I have had pollen substitute out for the last month and have kept a honey water feeder out over the winter. All hives are very active and are bringing in a yellow pollen. They have not abandoned the spent brewers yeast, but the demand is down.

I went to my 5 hives yesterday but I did not see the first drone! Should I be worried? I did however see small amount of brood in all the hives so I know that the queens are starting to lay. Four hive had quite a bit of store the fifth was a little light so I gave them two frames from the freezer. It looked like ever third or fourth bee was bringing in yellow pollen.

You don't have anything to worry about--if your hives are starting to brood up, and you are keeping an eye on the food stores until the flow starts, you are where you want to be. I will have to keep a very close eye on my hives to prevent early swarming. The brood stimulating feed I have had out for the last month was to get this result. I want to make some early splits and have strong hives early so that I can boost weaker hives in other locations with frames of brood and nurse bees.

Drones are out flying today! Been seeing one or two at the hives the last couple of weeks. Today saw a lot of them coming and going. The sound of drones flying all around the hive, can't miss it.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... 669&type=3

Took a look inside today. Capped brood and drone cells in every hive! Even saw two drones crawling around on one frame.

Wally came up and we went to look at a very weak looking Wayne's Bee hive of mine in Brown Summit. There was a small cluster, capped brood, eggs and larvae, but the queen did not care to be seen. We went into another of my more active hives and took out two very nice frames of capped brood and bees. The hive had capped drone brood, several drones walking around, and lots of bees. We boosted the Wayne's bee hive with the two brood frames and gave that hive some honey/open comb frames. Build up in the very active hives is much more robust than I imagined it would be.

I was planning on putting my swarm lure hive in David's dogwood here at the house around March 1st since I had a swarm move into it last year on March 15th. I'm giving serious thought to putting it out in a week or ten days.

What will you include in the swarm lure hive you plan to set in the dogwood?

I will put in 1 or 2 frames of old brood (black) comb, 8 undrawn frames, and a drop or 2 of lemongrass oil. I will periodically put a dot of lemongrass oil on the landing board of the hive. It sits about 8 feet up and faces southeast.

Thanks for the information, Rob. I, too, want to try and lure a swarm this year. Please keep us posted here on the forum.

I'd be interested to know the date when you decide(d) to set yours out and when scout bees take serious interest in it. I'm curious to know how soon the swarm will happen after the scouts let the queen 'know' where to go.

One more question: Does it matter how far you place the lure hive from your existing hives? Good luck!

Nancy Ruppert gave a really good presentation about getting ready for spring at last night's GCBA meeting. In the course of her inspections, she was finding that alot of hives were about 2 weeks ahead of normal development. As a result, she is going to put her personal swarm lure hives out NOW. I know of several folks who had swarms move into empty hives they had left out beside their own bees. Nancy said you could have lure hives 8 feet or 3 feet up--if the scouts found the location to be attractive, you had a good shot at a swarm moving in.

I couldn't make it to the meeting last night. Thank you for sharing what Nancy had to say about our early spring. I'm kind of excited about it and will plan accordingly. I'm sure others will be doing the same. Thanks again!