Father's Day Check In

The kids and I looked in on all three hives today.  The weather was sunny on a weekend for the first time in a while.  Both Langstroth hives have been very busy this month when the weather has permitted.  The KTBH has been much more quiet, though.


Felix - busy, happy hive.  They are still working on filling the bottom hive body and not much work upstairs in the second hive.  I pulled the feeder box off.  It was empty and they don't need it now with everything in bloom.

Oscar - same as Felix.  Looks like they have good comb on 8 out of 10 bars in the brood chamber.  Nothing happening in the honey reserve box yet.  This is probably the last time I will look into the brood chamber on this hive. 

I have supers prepped for both Oscar and Felix, but neither needed supering today.  The wild clover started blooming about a week ago, so the nectar flow should start any day.  The crimson clover I planted is starting to bloom and the yellow clover should be a week or two behind that.  I will check in on the Langs in a couple of weeks to see if they need supers.

That leaves the Nairobi hive.  The Buckfast queen that shipped with this hive's package of bees underwent some stress as noted in an earlier post.  She is not laying well.  There is no capped or open brood and a lot of drones.  This could mean the workers are laying or that she is just not up to the task.  In either case, I ordered another queen to replace her and it should arrive this week.  I hope the remaining bees are not too old to support the new queen and that the workers are not laying and will accept her.

Queen spotted

Honey on top, but no brood.  Same bar as above