Ramblings in this heat

Well its over 100 deg today and i have a ton of work to do this weekend. Currently have 15 hives bodies, 10 bottoms, and 150 frames to build. Add this to the fact i have 12 hives to feed initially and I'm sure more have used their syrup... i also need to inspect a multitude of hives to see if they are doing well, accepted queens, etc.

Far too much work in this heat, but it will have to get done. I have 13 queens coming possibly Tuesday or Wednesday, i will be selling 3 of those to a friend so that leaves me with 10 splits i will have to make next week.

This will be my last round of splits and will set me at 60 hives assuming everything has been and will be accepted and does well. I have been doing 50/50 splits and this seems to work very well. In fact the parent hives when left in place to receive the foragers have been building out 10 deep frames of foundation within 4-5.5 gallons of syrup which isn't too shabby this time of year. This means that the split will be not far behind them once they build up the difference of bees to account for the foragers they don't have. So basically i have a month from the time the splits are made to be in full double deeps.

This is a little different from my original plan of overwintering all nucs, but this will also give me allot of drawn comb. Essentially what i have when i make the splits is a nuc ready for winter as originally planed, but i have a hard time sitting watching bees do nothing when i know they could be drawing me some wax.

At first i thought wax was the only thing i was receiving for my sugar i am spending, but after thinking and watching i am also having a chance to see how a queen preforms in a larger colony prior to sale in the spring. A true test of performance. It also helps weed out the "junk" early on as the poor queens will not be able to build up like the others, while in a nuc arrangement both a good and poor queen will be restricted possibly falsely equaling the judging. Of course winter will tell who does well and also who is frugal or not.

I will say the queens i have made this year are preforming well, not only for me but for others as well. So alot of my worry and concern have been put to rest when it comes to selling nucs as i have personally worked and seen these other hives out of my control and they look wonderful.

These are my thoughts anyway...