My family just got home from the beach for the last week and I have just finally had the time to actually look in my hives at home for the first time in a month.
All of my hives have queens and most of them have quite a bit of brood. I noticed some dark nectar that is being brought in, so there is a little bit of a flow going on. Maybe someone with more botanical knowledge then me can tell us what we have in flow?
The one thing that I didn't see much of was pollen. I don't usually give pollen substitute to my bees, but there wasn't enough in there for them to feed the brood so I made 1" patties and put one on the floor of the entrance of each hive. They immediately started to take interest in it. I don't like the idea of pollen patties over the brood chamber or larger then 1" squares do to the fact that SHBs LOVE to lay eggs in the patties if they aren't eaten very quickly. If they are in the entrance I can keep an eye on it and remove it if not eaten.
I also put in sticky boards in all my hives today to do a mite count. If your a beekeeper who does treat for mites, then this is the time of year to see if your at threshold. I'm hoping that only one of the hives is going to need to be treated since it's been two years w/o treatment and I did notice some wing damage, that suggests to me, at it's over threshold.
So how are things in your backyard hives? Problems, successes or questions? Let's talk about bees!
Posts
