Bees a Buzzing…
After much research, we received some local bees. The feral hives have swarmed and the hives we brought with us didn’t make it. I hope the local bees do well.
May 27, 2016- We are now a registered Apiary with the State of Texas
We have set out more swarm traps hoping to catch any colonies looking for a place to move into.
While I love the bee boxes, this is what I really want to build- A Slovenian bee house.
So, how large do we want our apiary to become?
Setting up the Nucs
Inspection
Looking for the Queen
Treating for mites
Processing Honey
All bottled up !
We ordered 3 nucs to add to our apiary and diversify our genetics. (2019)
We did a cut out and brought the bees home !
Queens are looking good.
January 5, 2020- Bees out of resources- fed pollen patties and 1 qt. sugar water in each hive. January 8- I added 1 qt. sugar water to each bee hive. January 15- Fed bees and added back 5 frames to each hive. Set out 2 swarms traps in old plastic nuc boxes.
February 8, 2020- Bees are bring in a light pollen at an incredible rate. Hives look good, added sugar water & checked artificial pollen supply. 10th- I built 2 bee swarm traps, waiting on the “Swarm Commander” lure to arrive. 14th- I baited and hung 2 new and 2 old bee swarm traps. 16 th- Ben and I did a full hive inspection. West hive- we saw the queen, 3 frames of brood and packing in the pollen, uncapped larva. East hive- 3 frames of brood, uncapped queen cell in the middle of a frame, pacing in nectar (sugar syrup) and pollen, did not find the queen but saw uncapped brood. Added 1 qt sugar water to each hive. 23rd- I checked the hives- no swarm cells, building brood, added 1 qt sugar water to the east hive. 29th- I fed & checked hives- they have 3 solid frames of brood & larva. Added Beetle blasters onto entrance. I noticed some white grub type larva at the bottom of the west hive. Hives are very calm and bringing in pollen & storing (sugar water)
March 16, 2020- Prepped the bee yard so that I can clean out the hives and get ready for 3 nucs next month. Added guardian small hive beetle excluder entrances onto 5 bottom boards. The bees are bringing in pollen like crazy. Cliff Caskey gave me his “hot knife” for to cut off the honey caps.
March 23, 2020- I added a second deep box and removed the feeder. I saw the queen in the east box. Brood in hives.
March 31, 2020- I moved the bees out of a swarm trap into a 10 frame hive box. There were a lot of bees in that small swarm box. They had already built 4 beautiful combs on the lid. I do not know if I got the queen or if there is one since I saw no brood. I added 2 frames of closed brood and nectar from another hive, a pollen patty & a quart of sugar water into a top feeder. We will see if they stay or go… Some had already gathered on the tree where the swarm box was and some on the outside of the new hive box. Where is the queen? That is where the bees will go.
April 1, 2020- Great day, nice weather. I moved another swarm box to the junk yard, bees from the same tree began inspecting it. I do not know if I have the queen in the first box. Bees were busy dragging out pupas and cleaning out the hive. I (foolishly) decided to move the 10 frame box to the apiary in the day time. I tied a towel over the entrance to block the bees inside but as I moved them via the wagon I sloshed sugar water all over the hive. I believe that this may have caused a robbing frenzy with this hive and perhaps the hives next to it. We will see in a couple of days if I have a queen I the box and if I can combine the other bees (2nd swarm trap) with the first bunch.
April 7, 2020- , Checked the bee hives. The swarm hive has lots of larva so that means it is queenright. I moved 3 frames of eggs/ larva from the bottom to the top of both of the other two hives. No queen cells anywhere. I removed the feeders from all of the hives.
April 17, 2020- 1 st cut out: I arrived onsite at 9:00 ish, Bee hive located under the carport in the 2nd story floor. Erected scaffolds, smoked at the entrance, cut holes looking for the hive , cut out plywood and began cut out. Used bee vac to suck up many flying bees, hung it at the entrance for awhile. Removed a lot of fresh comb the 3-4 combs of sealed brood, the 3-4 frames of honey. I couldn’t reach any further we cut the plywood on the other side of the beam. More comb & bees. Vacuumed as many as possible, cutting comb/ 2: hose plugged with bees at one point.
Went for lunch and let the remaining bees reform. Returned to vacuum bees into a second box.
Cleaned up and headed to Dayton. Google bounced me down rough county roads so after picking up 3 heavy nuc I decided to take the paved road out. No cell signal, phone battery went dead, I couldn’t get the Ford service to take me n the route I wanted to go (hwy 290) I wasted 30 minutes circling back through Dayton, oh well. It rained from Houston to home, got home at 8:30 to receive several big hugs from Lexi, she told me that she was glad I was safe. Lessons learned – Get a full body bee suit (so that I don’t have to continue pulling the back of the jacket down), do not take the suit off, bees really do hone in on the attack pheromone left on your body/ suit by the other bees, find the queen and cage her if possible, use long gloves, covered with nitrile groves (the nitrile gloves got holes in them to easy) bring an empty bucket to put the excess comb in, remember that everything gets sticky, bring something to wash everything off, add some liquid soap and a “insect bite” pen to your resources.
18th- I awoke at 5:45, got up at 6:45. All is quiet, coffee and writing this. I got stung in the right temple and on the right wrist yesterday. The temple has swollen about the diameter of a dime and both itch “deeply”. Well, it’s silly Saturday- Lexi is up. She opened the chicken coop and counted all of the chicken then sat quietly until Brenda got up. I went out to the apiary and hived the cut out and the 3 nucs. One nuc was damaged. Got stung 2 more times after I left the apiary. Good luck to the bees settling in. Lots of dead bees in front (back) of the hives, (I rotated the entrance 180 degrees last night and put some grass in front so that the bees would reorient) Moved the chicken pen, Went from 2 hives to seven! 2 one year old hives, one swarm & one cut out, 3 new nucs.
20th- I checked on the 2019 hives, 2019.1 is ok, 2019.2 is starting to get full in the bottom box. Strange thing- a (small) swarm or just a ball of bees were on the back of one hive so I pushed them into a nuc. We will see if they stay or something else is going on. I also removed all of the entrance blockers on the 3 new nucs and the swarm I brought home.
23rd- . 2012.1 & 2012.2 and the cut out hive depleted it’s quart of sugar water. 2012.3 is 80% gone. 25th- Worked the bee hives, found the queen in 20.2 & 20.3, not much going on with 19.1 & 19.2, they do not build comb fast but both had capped brood. 20.5 Swarm had a few eggs, 20.4 cut out had no eggs or larva. I took a frame from 20.3 full of eggs & larva to see if they will make a queen. 28th- I went out to swap qt bottles of sugar water out in the bee hives and one bee in 20.3 chased me ½ way back to the house. I had to put on my bee suit to continue. The swarm, 20.4 was bearding and all of the other hives were active.
May 4, 2020- Went to check the hives. 20.4 cut out absconded-completely empty. 19.11 & 19.12 doing poorly, maybe ½ to ¾ frame of brood. Moved both back to one brood box. 20.3 swarm is looking good, I moved frames from 20.4 to their box. 20.1-2-3 doing well. Added sugar water to each box. 11th- Checked the bees- 20.1 & 20.3 are ok, 3-4 frames of brood. 20.2 was full so I moved 3 frames of brood up into a deep box and added the queen excluder. 19.11 is doing well, I added 1 qt sugar water, 19.12 is doing poorly, barely 1/3 frame of brood. 20.3 swarm has built queen cells even though there is larva. I left it alone to see what happens. 22nd- Exhausted from heat after working the bees. Swarm trap shows no signs of a queen, moved a frame of brood into their hive. 19.11 thriving, added a deep super with queen excluder to 19.11, 20.1 & 20.2 All hive are bringing in nectar and some are starting to backfill their brood box. Added small hive beetle traps to all hives.
May 28th- Well boo! I just looked at the bee hives and 2020.1 was dead and smelled of death. Looks like the small hive beetles hatched out and killed everything. 5 frames of honey and 5 frames of brood gone. I went from 2 overwintered hives to 7 hive in March, (bought 3 nucs, 1 cut out and 1 caught swarm) Now I’m down to 5. Cut out absconded, swarm is trying to re-queen, 1 overwintered hive is low in numbers, 1 overwintered hive and 2 nucs are booming. I did thermal mite treatments and added 2 shb traps with DE to the hives last week, all my entrances have Guardian SHB entrances. IDK if I can stand the losses until I get some of this figured out. I am trying to get to 12 hives. I’ll continue but I don’t like the losses!
June 6, 2020- 20.1 and 20.2 hives have frames of honey being capped. 19.11 is growing slowly, 7 frames in top/ 4 being worked. 19.12 & swarm hive were combined today with paper. Swarm has nectar & hive beetles- 19.12 has some frames being worked. Bees are going in and out of the empty hive and swarm box but I don’t think anything is moving in. 15th- Beehives are growing. 19.2 and swarm hive combined well, 19.1 is growing. 20.1 & 20.2 are almost full. I added a deep on 20.1. The 2nd deep box is almost full of honey and very heavy. A swarm moved into the trap in the apiary and I moved them into a hive. I need to slow down and first find the queen. When I went back this afternoon they were all in the hive so I guess I lucked out and got the queen inside. Excited to have another (free) hive.
June 21, 2020- Hot &humid. Worked on bee feeders, added a box to 20.2, moved swarm to stand, all ok. They are all bringing in resources and making honey. While we were in the hot tub Brenda said, “What’s that smoke behind the house?” I jumped out of the hot tub to discover the apiary on fire. The plastic box that holds all of my equipment and the table it sat on was on fire. After throwing 2 buckets of water on it I connected some water hoses and put the fire out. Everything destroyed, hot enough to melt the aluminum frame pullers.
Scorched one bee hive but I hope all is ok inside. While I was spraying water the bees were tagging me and buzzing me. Thank you God for saving us. This could have been a disaster with dry grass and dead wood everywhere. We almost did not go into the hot tub as lexi was dressing slowly. God saved us, just in time. I still do not know how the tub caught fire internally. Possibly a spark from the smoker? It only takes a spark…. Estimated loss is $957.00
June 27- The hive that I combined is doing well but very aggressive, one bee stung me on a knuckle through the leather gloves. The swarm is staying the hive box but one of the combs has collapsed (due to the fire?) 20.1 & 20.2 both have multiple combs of honey, most is about ½ way capped. All 5 hives are ok or doing well relative to their environment.
July 3, 2020- All bee hive are doing well. Pulled one frame of honey, the others are not yet ready/ completely capped. Working on building some double nuc boxes.
July 9, 2020-I pulled some more honey, the bees didn’t like it. My swarm hive is doing well, the combined hive (19-2) was HOT, several stings through my leather gloves and into my blue jeans. I washed my jacket, veil and gloves today, hopefully to get any scent off. The bees are steady moving water from the pond to the hives. It is amazing to watch how fast they fly, buzzing over us, then over the house. They are very fast. 20-1 and removed 2 frames of honey, never found the queen. Exploring the option to raise or buy some queens and create some splits. Do I have enough resources to split the hives 13th- Processed 5 frames of honey, Record 108 degrees at Camp Mabry, Mostly stayed inside after 9 am.
August 8, 2020- Left early and picked up 3 nucs from Flavor Farms in McDade ($650- $217 each), installed into boxes by 11 am. More thermal mite treatments. 11th- Shimmed all of the hives, 3 nucs settling in well, guardian entrances on all hives, should be over 102 degrees today. 23rd- Beekeeping in the morning, one hive (possibly two) queen less. Combined 1st hive with another and added a frame of larva to the 2nd. Bees very aggressive- my new ultrabreeze full suit held up to the test. Though I did get 3 bees up into the cuff of my gloves, no stings. Then for some reason a mob of bees were in the car port and I got tagged in the stomach. 27th- Set up 7 pierco feeders, bees everywhere with the smell of feed. 1st hive had 3 empty small queen cells, also open larva on the frame I added 3 days ago. I am unsure if they are queenright. Other hives are steady brining in pollen. I added one quart water with 1 cup sugar, 2 tsp Honey Bee Healthy (spearmint oil, lemongrass oil, sucrose, ?) and one tsp apple cider vinegar per qt. Renewed 4 top covers and strapped down all hives.
September 6, 2020- Bee hives have all drained their sugar syrup, 2 had ants in the tray. Combined one of the Texas 5000 hives with 2 nucs from Abe Connally. (One box drawn frames & honey each) One hive exploded when I opened it, not happy but fortunately I didn’t get stung. Down to 6 hives- all received a ¼ pollen patty and a quart of sugar/ honey b healthy/ apple cider vinegar. Removed all queen excluders.
8th- Up at 5ish, went to Bacliff to do a cut out. Heavy rain as I was entering Kemah, road construction and no visibility made driving challenging. Opened u a soffit to see 8-9 beautiful combs, thinking this will be an easy job. The joist are only 12” tall so I can just cut out and drop the combs into a hive box, vacuum up the remaining bees and leave. HA! I cut the 1st comb out and then reached up the length of my arm to find the base of the comb, as I cut the next comb honey began to literally pour out onto me, my entire sleeve and the ground. I cut out a 5 gallon bucket full of honey comb, washed honey off of both arms and my gloves several times. Good thing it was raining and we were already wet. I ended up with 8 frames of brood rubber banded to the blank frames, a few bees and a whole lot of mess. We crushed the comb and strained around 3 gallons of honey. Many stings through my wet leather gloves but the ultrabreeze full bee suit paid off, no stings! My hands suffered multiple stings and are swollen 2 days later. Home around 7ish, unloaded the truck, told and listened to lots of stories from everyone’s adventures today. I slept soundly. 9th- Lots of bees buzzing under the carport as they smell the honey oozing out of the cut out box. I moved them to a clean bottom board and feed the chickens the dead bees and larva. Under the carport the bees were after me to the extent that I had to get Brenda to unlock the kitchen door, walk through the rain, swipe the remaining bees off and then quickly enter into the kitchen. It rained a lot today and everything is a muddy mess. I strained the cut out comb in a paint screen, heated it in a roaster and separated the wax. I was left with 6 quarts of honey water. 10th- I moved the cutout hive to the apiary, the weather is cool this morning and all of the bees are moving slow. If this hive is not queenright I will combine it with the 2020 nuc. Cleaned up the wax/ roaster/ honey water area. 17th- Humid this morning, slept in till 7ish. Checked the bee hives. The cut out is already dead due to SHB & wax moths. You can smell it as you approach the apiary. Cleaned out the hive body and fed the shb larva to the chickens. All hives empty of sugar water except the 2020.9 (single) Lots of ants here also. Added 1/6 pollen patty per hive and a qt mixture of sugar, honey b healthy and apple cider vinegar. Stung on the left ankle by one upset bee. 19.1 came out in full force when I opened their inner cover without smoking them 1st.
October 6, 2020- Glanced at the bee hives, all are bringing in pollen.
November 2, 2020- I performed a bee cut out for Clifford today. They were 3-4 feet deep into the 2×12 joist in the floor of the 2nd story. I removed the bees with a vacuum but was unable to reach any of the comb. I used my camera to see where they were. Left at 5 am, home at 5pm.
Cut out of bees were not happy this morning when I opened their cage. One chased me all the way around to the front door. I put my full suit on and moved them into a 2 frame nuc. We will see what happens. In the apiary I reduced all of the hives and started a robbing frenzy. Bees everywhere. One stung me on my right wrist and ½ of my forearm and top of my hand is swollen. I moved the nuc to the apiary before the temperature warmed up. My hand and arm is swollen, I should have worn my long gloves. I have an ice pack on it now while I am typing this with my left hand.
8th- I fed the hives ½ gallon of syrup and a lb of pollen patty. 24th- I ordered 36 more deep hive bodies from Mann Lakes. 29th- I removed the feeders from the bee hives, 1st one very aggressive. I went and lit the smoker.
December 17th- I compiled all of the information documenting 5+ years of beekeeping on the property to apply for Ag exemption in 2021.
December 28- Preparing to make some sugar cakes for the bees this morning. I saw the queen in the 2 frame cut out. All bees look good.
January 9, 2021- The sun is out and shining brightly. Put the fence and gate up around the bee yard.
February 1, 2021- I moved the apiary and hives today. There are about 100 bees that have returned to the original spot. I set out a box for them. 2nd- I made some bee candy this morning, the house smells like apple cider vinegar and lemongrass oil. I moved the box with the remaining bees to the apiary and took the old apiary apart. 5th- . I fed the bees the candy boards and pollen patties. The little hive was quite aggressive, 8-10 bees went right to my face veil. I was fully suited for this operation.
February 16, 2021-16th- Everything is still frozen, Weather.com says its 6 degrees in Lockhart at 7am. “Hard Freeze” Forecasting a high of 28 today. We had a horrible freeze and lost 4 hives. 21st- $ bee hives dead, lots of robbing, I took pictures and sent in a request form USDA. I also asked BeeWeaver if I could trade my 5 purchased queens for 5 nucs. I need a minimum of 8 hives for Ag exemption.
March 28, 2021- Added sugar water and pollen patties to the bee hives.
April 2021- 1st swarm caught and housed!
May 7, 2021- Lost one hive to SHB. Swarm hive was very aggressive when I tried to transfer them to a 10 frame box. Never ever ever do this without a smoker lit. Stung on chin, belly and thumb- with my suit on! Set up 7 10 frame boxes for the transfer next week. Looking forward to some Bee Weaver bees. 12th- 9 out of the 10 beehives are surviving. One showed no larvae and shb.
December 14, 2021- Fed 8 hives 2 qts of heavy syrup. 21-Swarm absconded, 21-7 dead out. Way humid today.
January 22, 2022- Stung on the temple by an aggressive bee today while I was watching the hives. Looks like no activity in 2 hives. Were they robbed this week? Time to suit up and see.
I overwintered 5 out of 10 hives this winter. 4 are very weak and one is “busting at the seams”. Feed, feed, feed and I added another box to the hive that is excelling.
April 1st- spring has sprung and the flowers are blooming. This makes the bees (happy) thrive. Time to get those swarm traps out.
April 16, 2022- One question leads to three more (or a day with a commercial bee keeper).
Someone said the “You don’t know what you don’t know until you know what you don’t know”. You discover that there are a lot of things you did not know when you get to hang out with an experienced bee keeper for the day.
Several of us were fortunate to be able to see the operation of a commercial bee yard in action. Blake’s crew were splitting hives and we were able to get right in the middle of the action. As he explained his method of making nucs one question asked led to three more. Anything from “what’s that” to “why do you do this”? Blake smiled and said, there are a lot of ways to raise bees and this is how we do it at Desert Creek Honey.
Most of us hobbyist beekeepers were amazed at how fast his crew moved through the hives. What his crew did in an hour might have taken all day for any one of us.
As Blake opened up several hives he gave us lessons of reading the frames, what to look for and what to do in each case. As we were leaving for lunch we shook several swarms out of a tree and off of a fence line. Looking for the queen in a swarm is always fun but someone spotted her among the screen box of bees. “Looks kinda small, has she been mated?” one person would ask. Then three more questions would come about queens, mating, genetics, drones or something else.
Lunch went quickly as we continued rapid firing questions to Blake. He graciously answered each question in between bites. “How much does it cost to transport bees to California?” “How many bee boxes fit on a truck?” “Who pays for the insurance?” “How much do the almond farmers pay?” “How long do the bees stay in the fields?” “How many bees per acre?” Each question led to three more. “Which bees make the best honey?” “How long is the honey flow in Texas?” “When do you move your hives to North Dakota?”
“Blake, what do you think about this method?” “Have you ever tried to do it this way?” “Which is better?” “What do you do if…?” After enjoying local country cooking we went to another bee yard. Here we opened nucs being raised for commercial bee keepers. Each had a story which generated many more questions. “What happens the queen dies?” “How do you tell if the queen is only laying drones?” “How many nucs do commercial bee keepers buy at a time?” “When do you get you queens?” “What about…?”
The day went quickly as we learned how to split hives, build nucs, catch swarms, remove bees from larger hives for packages, determine the health of multiple hives, deal with any issue that a hive may have and learn through “hands on” experience. It was an exciting wonderful day. It was also nice that a cold front blew in around 11 am and cooled down to 65 degrees since we were in full bee suits.
When I saw pallets stacked on pallets of wooden boxes and syrup in 275 gallon totes it helped me visually seen some of the differences between hobbyist and commercial bee keepers. You also see the differences when you are in the bee yards and view hundreds of bright colored nuc boxes down a fence line and watch a crew move quickly through them to determine their health. As I compare my 10 hive apiary to a 20,000 plus hive commercial system it causes me to ask another question, “How large do I want to grow?” This of course leads to three more questions…
If you are interested in learning more about beekeeping, Blake and his team offer classes through Texas Bee Supply They also have an excellent magazine available each month for free.
April 17- Time to split the hive and introduce the new queen.
May 20- picked up 4 nucs from Beeweaver, May 21st- picked up 4 hives from Tx Bee Supply. These were only available with screened bottoms so I will have to build/ buy some solid bottoms. Tx Bee Supply hives were full so I added another deep box to prep for splits. One hive was queenless/ broodless. I suspect the hive arrived without a queen b/c there was no sign of queen cells when I inspected the hive.
July 2022- From 10 to 15 hives. I picked up 4 queens July 16th and completed the splits. One queen didn’t make it so I picked up one at BeeWeaver on July 23rd. I am feeding about 50# of sugar per week. I set up an 8 gallon trash can with a hose attached to feed the bees hives. All have 1 gallon internal feeders.
September 2022 I moved the cutout hive to the apiary, the weather is cool this morning and all of the bees are moving slow. If this hive is not queenright I will combine it with the 2020 nuc.
I went to the bee yard and fed 10 hives with 40 pounds of sugar/ 5 gallon water- sugar syrup. Using a 20 gallon bucket, a garden hose and pvc valve I was successful at mixing and allocating the syrup to each hive without creating a feeding frenzy. Everything went smooth, even the clean up. I opened the aggressive hive and they did not attack me! The top deep box is 75% full of capped honey. All of the hives are doing well, even the 2 small hives from last year’s nucs. They are just “trucking along”.
Bee hives have all drained their sugar syrup, 2 had ants in the tray. Combined one of the Texas 5000 hives with 2 nucs from Abe Connally. (One box drawn frames & honey each) One hive exploded when I opened it, not happy but fortunately I didn’t get stung. Down to 6 hives- all received a ¼ pollen patty and a quart of sugar/ honey b healthy/ apple cider vinegar. Removed all queen excluders.
June 2023 I added 5 deep boxes to the new hives. All of the hives are full and there is more honey ready to harvest.
Hot, hot, hot. 2nd to the last hive swarmed me and several bees found an unsewn area to sting me between my thumb and index finger. At least 4 stings there. All total around 100 lbs of honey- a little over 8 gallons. Time to bottle it up. 22 -1.5 lb bottles ready to label and sell. 3 showers today, still sweating. Moved 33 quail into the cages in the chicken pen. It is supposed to be 105 degrees for the next few days…..
June 13, 2023 Suited up and opened up the bee hives. Pulled several deep frames of honey and 6 medium frames. Using the hot knife that Cliff Caskey gave me I am currently draining the honey into the bucket. I hope this 100 degree day will assist with this process. 7:30-9:30, got it done before it heats up. Resting before I go back into the heat to process the honey. Uncapped and spun out almost 2.5 gallons of honey. 6 deep frames, 7 medium frames.
July 2023 I pulled more honey, the bees are hungry. Filled each hive with ½ gallon of 2:1 sugar water with apple cider vinegar. Time to process honey. Spun out 8 gallons and 13- 20oz bottles from about 48-50 medium frames. Still about a quart of honey left in the bottling can- I am out of bottles. Back sore, tongue sweet from the honey. Thank you God for creating bees.
February 2024 We filled and labeled 48 -12oz bottles of honey from Spring 2023 honey. I still have 2 gallons left but it is beginning to crystalize. Prepped 4 gallons of sugar/ honey water for the bees tomorrow.
2024- Spring time, we made 6 splits and are preparing to increase our apiary
April 2024 The bees were not happy that I invaded their space. Many stings on the gloves (and through the gloves) I had to remove the old gloves and put on plastic gloves, then leather gloves. Tagged on the nose, forehead, elbow and multiple through the leather gloves into my left hand. 2 dead hives, wax moths have already invaded the hives. I found and set up six hives for splits when I get the queens on Friday. Several hives have lots of honey (and are defending it). While waiting on the nectar. May 2024 10 of 16 bee hives are doing excellent, 4 of 6 splits are doing well, 2 have lost their queen, one is overrun by hive beetles. The largest hive hit me hard when I disrupted their brood frames. I placed 2 brood frames into the 2 queenless hive so that they can raise their own queen. I will check on these 2 in 30 days. I got stung (through my bee suit) in both shoulders and under the chin. Time for them to bring in some nectar and make some honey.
June 2024 After coffee I suited up to check the bees. Wow, the bees from one box hit hard. I thought maybe they were queenless so I opened them up to spot eggs/ larva and they all came after me. I did see larva. The other boxes are doing well. I downsized one hive and received several stings through my leather gloves. The 2 we looked at least time have produced queens and are growing. Some honey in the supers but not as much as last year.
July 2024 I took 15 deep frames & 5 honey supers (partially filled) 9:30-12:300- I extracted almost 12 gallons of honey, 6-7 stings, I left the supers and honey extraction out for the bees to rob the remaining honey. Later that evening I added the frames and supers back, with Apivar to each hive for mite treatment. I am tired and do not like sweating and taking showers to wash off the sweat. Lot’s of water and Gatorade today. I estimated that 12 deep frames = 3 gallons of honey or 1 quart per frame. Amazing and the honey tastes delicious this year.
July 2024 We have treated 16 strong hives for mites. The summer heat is brutal right now.