I told you that I had received my queens in good shape. What I haven’t told you is that Murphy’s Law struck again! I was going to go to the bee yards the next day or two and remove the old queens and maybe pull honey at the same time. Didn’t happen. I got a call from a home owner about some honey bees on his house and he wanted them gone. When I got all my equipment ready and loaded in the Ram, I promptly went over there and found that the honey bees were, little yellow jackets. After spending about 30 minutes explaining the difference between the two, I returned home. About two hours were spent on this adventure. Now it was getting too close to lunch, so I chilled for awhile and then had lunch. I over ate and decided to sit for a few minutes and watch the weather channel. I wanted to know if the weatherman would say that it would cloud up and rain or something to keep me home and put off finding and caging old queens. I still don’t know what the weather was to be like according to the TV. I had gone to sleep and woke up just before my wife got home from work at 4:30 pm.

Then I just had to talk to her and then the news came on and by the time it was over, I had wasted all day. Then my wonderful sweet wife reminded my that I had to get ready to give a talk to a school room full of prekindergarten and kindergarten kids in two days. I had to find my placards for show and tell, get the observation hive cleaned up and reloaded with some active bees, again for show and tell. I managed to drag the preparation out over two days just in time to get a good night sleep for the presentation the next day.

By this time, one of the beekeepers said that he needed some more queens. I ended up selling him the 18 queens I had left after selling the original 7. Now I could rest and get some stuff done.

As it was one thing after another came up and I couldn’t get anything done anyway. I still haven’t cleaned my honey house and all the equipment in there. I haven’t gotten around cutting the weeds growing in my back yard. (They are now over my head. I may have to get the chainsaw working again.)

Later I had a beekeeper call me and asked when I was going to order some more queen. I said soon and he said that he needed two more pretty quick. Well, I relented and ordered 25 more. I got them on Saturday and today is Monday. I know that if I pull honey, I can let the supers sit for two to three days before I have to extract. Any longer and the Small Hive beetles will hatch and the larva starts to move in honey. I figured that if I had honey to extract then that would entice me to clean up quickly.

This morning, Monday, I drove an hour from home to my furthermost apiary in the north part of the county. I got to the land owners place and was about half way from the gate to the apiary on a narrow pathway (little road) and found that the path was blocked by a bush hog and a pile of debris.  When the land owner and I discussed me putting bees there, it was understood that I would always have access to my bees 24/7. I must think again if I want to keep bees there or move.

I went to the next apiary expecting to get a brood box and two supers of honey (the queen had died earlier and there were no eggs to make another one). The bees should have filled all the comb with honey before they died. Well maybe they did, but I delayed getting back to them and this morning, I found the yellow jackets busily working the hive. Very little honey was left and the wax moths (Greater Wax Moth) had efficiently webbed up the frames. I broke the boxes apart and stood them up on end so the wind and sun could get in and maybe dry up the larva. I will go back later and add those boxes to the pile I have ready to clean and repaint.

I went to the next apiary and found that the bees didn’t have any extra honey for me even though there are two cotton fields very close by. Only one colony made an extra super of honey and I had to give that to a colony that didn’t have even their own super filled. I leave the first super of honey on the hive. They work for it and they earned it. Any honey in the supers above the first super is mine. So far only one colony made a super of cotton honey over and above the first super. And I had to give that to another colony. Still batting 1000 for no honey.

The last apiary only had two colonies in it and one of them was dead. I have only eight more colonies to check in three apiaries. I just might not have to clean my honey house as fast as I thought. If not, then I have to get my wife to start reminding me to clean the honey house just after I get the back yard cleaned up enough to find the stacks of bee boxes back there, somewhere, that I need to clean before Spring.

Sorry, I chased rabbits down paths that took us away from the reason for this post. The queens. I still have to go back to find the old queens. I am of two thoughts on this subject. Should I seek and destroy the old queen, or should I search and rescue to a queen cage to save them until I see if the new queens are accepted? If I keep the old queens, then I need to put seven workers in the queen cage with her and plug the end with a marshmallow for food. I will have to give them water every day. Or here is another thought. Actually this is a proven technique. I could make a nuc split and put 3 frames mixed with eggs, larva, capped brood, pollen, and honey along with enough bees to cover them in a nuc box, add a full frame of honey and an empty frame with foundation (or drawn comb), and don’t forget the old queen. Then I should number the nuc with the same number of the hive they came out of, so that if the bees do not accept the new queen, I can reinstall the nuc back into the parent hive and still have a queen right hive.

I didn’t intend for this post to be an educational post, but it is. I also did not intend for this to be a lingthy post, but it is.

HAVE A NICE DAY!