What's that Buzz?

My hive last year was so compliant. They only drew in the lines and were very pleasant overall. PLUS they gave me over one hundred pounds of honey. This year on the other hand, my hives are challenging me constantly. In this post I will share some more of their antics of late. First, since I have a few hives I will be discussing, I will give you a little bit of background on each of them before I get too far into my latest update. I named each colony so I could keep them straight. They are all named "hive," but in different languages.

Alveare (Italian for hive) is where Athena is. The hive started out as an Italian race of honey bees however I am not sure what Athena is, I would say is is most likely Italian. She is our new queen whom I have written about. On my last two checks she has been there however her brood pattern is spotty. The picture on the left is from this hive. See if you can find Athena, she is marked with a white dot.

I am hoping this colony picks up soon so they have a better chance to survive out long winter here in Minnesota. Currently they only cover about three to four frames. Only time will tell if she will be able to build a strong enough colony before winter set in. Lets pray for a long summer and fall.

Panj (Slovenian for hive) is an Carniolan colony which is doing very well. I used Panj to help Athena along when she was first introduced. Panj is the colony I switch locations with Alveare so it lost the foraging bees that day. However it is still going strong and in fact on last inspection I found the queen (unmarked) and was so excited. Its really hard with so many bees! They are currently running strong with three full deeps and are making extra honey. If you look at this picture you can see very few empty cells, this queen is a super star. Those are all baby bees in those cells soon to be born.

Kosnica (Croatian for hive) is an Italian based colony and has always been the strongest hive. It filled its three deep boxes and received its honey supers a good week before Panj. However with that comes some bee-attitude. In mid-May this hive had started a queen cup on one of its frames which freaked me out a bit. A queen cup is the start of a queen cell. The location of the cup made it a supercedure cell. Meaning if they filled it they were planning on replacing the queen. Talk about stress for me! Losing a queen is huge with our short season. False alarm, the queen cup was never filled and was gone by next inspection. However as you will see this is not the end of Kosnica's shenanigans...

So let's get back to where I left you last... Athena was out of her cage and doing well. My plan was to let her be for a couple weeks.  My strong hives were doing so well. I did quick checks for eggs to ensure the queens were there and ok. I removed a little burr comb (drone brood which the bees make on the bottom of the frames- it makes a mess). And I accessed for the need to add supers, otherwise I let them bee. 

Mid June we had some really hot days so I let the next inspection go a few extra days. Normally I go in every seven to eight days. This one was planned for day eleven. Before hand, I was sitting outside with my kids eating lunch and I could hear a buzzing sound... I thought there was a hornet's nest close by. I told the kids to get in so I could check it out. As I carried our garbage to the driveway I found the source. There was a swarm forming above my driveway!!! One of my hives was swarming!!

I quickly inspected and found Athena wondering around. Alveare was a small colony, but thankfully still there. Then I went to check the other hives. However, since my other two queens are not marked, I was mostly going in to see if they were missing large amounts of bees or looking for other signs of swarming. Yes, both had bees.  However, Kosnica had made queen cells from the burr comb wax and hid them with the drones on the bottom of the frame. My strongest hive was now queenless. Well, at least for the next three weeks until the new queen *hopefully* starts laying eggs.

I left my hives to go check on the swarm. The swarm settled on a branch about forty feet up in our big oak tree. I set out a lure box with some lemongrass but they had other plans. Within two hours the swarm took off in a cloud and buzzed off over the houses and treetops.  

That buzzing, like a small engine plane was half my hive and my super star queen showing me they had other plans this summer.

Well, that's the buzz, for now...

Blessings!

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