At this point in time I should have had 2-3 full supers at least on my strong hive. I did split this hive twice, once in early may and again a few weeks later. I don't think they swarmed and I did find a queen cell open (chewed through)about halfway up the frame. My thought is that the queen somehow died in late feb early march and was replaced by the bees. My theory being that at my first full spring inspection around mid April I found no brood or eggs and had a fellow keeper come by several weeks later to double check for me and then found new eggs and very fresh larvae but nothing capped. It's just dissapointing this being my second season and all the honey I had promissed friends and family is still not there butI am hoping for a few shallows from the American and European Linden bloom. Plus people tell me that their best honey is from the fall flow.
"At this point in time I should have had 2-3 full supers at least on my strong hive. I did split this hive twice, once in early may and again a few weeks later."
Their energy is going into drawing out comb and buildng population. You will get more honey from (1) hive with 60,000 bees, then (2) hives with 30,000 bees each and even more then (3) hives with 20,000 bees each.
"I don't think they swarmed and I did find a queen cell open (chewed through)about halfway up the frame. My thought is that the queen somehow died in late feb early march and was replaced by the bees.
My theory being that at my first full spring inspection around mid April I found no brood or eggs and had a fellow keeper come by several weeks later to double check for me and then found new eggs and very fresh larvae but nothing capped."
Based on the time line, she most likely died the end of March and had just hatched out before your first inspection.
It's just dissapointing this being my second season and all the honey I had promissed friends and family is still not there butI am hoping for a few shallows from the American and European Linden bloom. Plus people tell me that their best honey is from the fall flow.
I would not give up hope yet. I am hoping to pull off a few supers (from 22 hives) over the next week or so to have honey for the summer sales.
Most of the nectar collected so far this season for the northern hives has gone into population growth, comb production, and swarming.
As the swarm season is now winding down, their efforts will now be focused on honey production.
Wait and give them sometime.
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