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A first for me... splits

5K views 0 replies 1 participant last post by  hex0rz 
#1 ·
I've got a hive that is in its 3rd season this year. Blue dot queen that was doing great. Was going to start grafting from her, actually. Because I've been doing schooling recently, i have not taken much time to check the bees much lately. But yesterday was the first since a couple weeks before. They all looked good and growing fine. Giving them syrup just enough to keep them going.

I opened up the blue dot queen hive, and it's just boiling with bees. So i figure ill tip the box to take a peek under the frames. Lo and behold, swarm cells!

Okay that's surprising! So i start looking further and the queen is nowhere to be found. So i initially thought, swarming. No eggs to be found so it happened some time ago. But the population was huge still. So I'm thinking the queen finally petered out.

With all the cells they made, i was able to make 6 splits off of this hive! They should still be in a good position to gather enough from the flow as well.

Crossing my fingers that some of these nucs will carry on her genetics as i think she was a really good queen overall. She's survived some really harsh winters here.

If she did swarm, it's not the first i have heard of it this year. We have had a really mild wet spring so far and it has allowed things to still bloom too. I can also tell that a flow is kicking into gear as they are putting on weight.

The Knapweed hasn't even bloomed yet! I've been theorizing that this year will be above average for this area and been trying to prepare for it getting more equipment ready in anticipation. It'd be nice to get two harvests, but I'm thinking it'll end up being just one huge one instead...
 
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