Update

So its been a while since i last posted something and alot has been going on atleast in other areas of my life... But back to bees which is what this blog is about after all...

I currently have 32 viable hives, was supposed to have recieved 10 queens from Russell Aparies this past week but have not recieved them so my plans are beginning to be pushed.

In the lack of timely queens i have 14 hives that are fully ready to share 5 frames for a split and more if i wanted to. So since i have hives ready i decided to start grafting for the first time off my Glen Aparies AI VSHxCarnolian queen. I recently recieved two AI'ed queens from Glen's one Pure VSH and one VSHxCarnie. They have been accepted and laying great!

Anyway, i felt pretty comfortable with my grafting especially as i got near the later larva i grafted, i grafter a total of 16 larva and i am sure messed that many up i left in the cells. So today i will pull the cells and see how they took...

My overall goal is to be at 50 splitable hives by the end of July. What this means is that i have 50 hives that can be split into at bare min. 5 frame nucs. but hopefully more drawn frames than just 5. I plan to overwinter these in a total 0f 8 deep frames with a 1.5 gallon Mann Lake cap and ladder feeder in a single 10 frame deep box all pushed together on a pallet.

I have also been very very very pleased with the Queens i got last year from Zia Queens, i recieved 5 of their Rocky Mt. Reinas and they have been my top preformers all year, whether its honey production, comb production, or split production. Since they have met and far exceeded my expectations i have decided to purchase 13 more of them to add to my genetic pool.

The Russians are doign very well so far. They are just hatching their second round of brood so the hives are what i call Russian. They are building great. I do notice a little runnyness on the frames but nothing i havnt seen before in Italian hives... the queens can also be elusive. They are by far my hardest queens to find, whether its from the darker brown color or maybe they hide. Either way i have trouble finding them and usually dont have any trouble finding other queens even unmarked...

One last thing i wanted to mention is the fact that this week has brought major change to my hives i have been feeding. Before these new hives have been taking syrup but at a slow pace, in some cases slow enough to ferment even with HBH. I feed them last weekend all 1.5 gallons and now less than one week they sucked it dry!!! This means as i had expected with the dry weather and heat the nectar flow is over. So for all those new beeks or new hives if they havnt been taking syrup before, you better "test" them and see, because from what i am seeing across about 15 hives i am feeding things have changed for the worst and they will need feeding or else they will starve.

I would also watch the frames and make sure they have ample pollen, currently i see atleast one solid frame of pollen plus the normal bands around brood. What i do is watch for this extra frame of pollen to be eaten, once i no longer find a "pollen frame" i start feeding pollen patties. Last year i started mid july feeding 1/2 lb of pattie and once they consumed 1/2 lb in 7 days i would give them a whole pattie. I continue until i see them storing it like real pollen (most patties are consumed by nurse bees and not stored until they have access). Once i start seeing the brown looking patties stored in the cells in abundance i then back off and use this "storage gauge" to tell me when to start back feeding. After all i dont want to cause them to become honey or pattie bound. But this assume bi-weekly inspections, so if you dont like doing inspections frequently i would feed patties once a week until they slow down taking it. Patties are by far cheaper than buying bees (packages are $80 something...)...

Well i think thats it. If i have viable queen cells and cant use them i will notify everyone and first come first serve can have the cells. I just dont have the mating nucs to be able to produce mated queens for sale right now. Maybe next year on that...