[Stansuch99]

I am amazed at how well they are doing this year. 4/6 of my hives have been split and the other 2 will be this weekend. They forced me to do the splits do to getting ready to swarm. So far 3 have drawn out 1 deep box of new frames and the other 3 have done 2 deep boxes with a nice crop of honey and brood in all of it. How is everyone else doing this year?

I am unsure if i want them getting 4 high. They get a bit heavy! I will add some pictures tonight for some reason it does not want to let me upload them atm.

 

[Browtine]

We are brand new beekeepers and started two hives with package bees on April 12th. Right now, they have both drawn out two deeps, but haven't started on the super yet. We are hoping we might get lucky and get some honey our first year.

 

[Hogback Honey]

I started 2 pkgs on April 13th, got a nuc around April 22nd or so, and put it into a deep. All are doing very well. Pkgs were Carnis, and the nuc was Italian. Just added a second deep last week on each. Wont be able to check them till weather warms up, chilli here in the daytime, and upper 30's at night.

 

[dstuckrn]

My first hive from last year survived the winter and was split a month ago, have about 3 full frames of capped honey in the super already and 2 full deeps. The split with a new queen is in a 5 frame Nuc. And another swarm I caught has filled one deep and another will be needed soon. I wasn't anticipating needing this much extra equipment this year! But its a good problem to have and I've learned alot this year.

 

[Phoebee]

Both nucs are apparently doing well, but have a lot of room to grow.

We installed them in 8-frame deeps around May 7, with three frames of drawn comb and two of foundation in addition to the two frames of brood and one of stores that were provided. About two weeks ago we added a second deep with foundation, and swapped a frame of brood and one of stores up to the top. I reduced ventilation at that point to keep the upper brood frame from becoming chilled. This seems to have worked. As of last weekend they're drawing out some comb on the upper level, although they've still got a little to draw on the first. Bee math says the emerging brood is now from the new queen, and there's a ton of capped brood present.

This weekend we're hoping to see blooms on the tulip poplars. Black locust is blooming at lower altitudes in the area (northeastern panhandle of WV), so hopefully that will soon follow. But they're bringing in pollen and, we think, nectar, most likely from some trees in the area. We're not seeing them on the blueberries or other flowers at ground level.

 

[GOHoney]

Last year compared to this year, night and day. I have two hives (Started early April) working on their first super. And four (Started early May) who are almost ready for their second brood box. There has been a really nice flow on for several weeks now.

 

[sqkcrk]

My hives is doing fine. Got all of my hives out of the orchards near Peru,NY. Now to get them distributed into their Summer locations and go through them. Still have to go back south for my nucs and have 50 queens coming June 10th. Bees is good.

 

[Snookie]

Can't say things are going well:{ Just OK

I spoke to a couple of other beekeepers in my neck of the US and seems like they are experiencing they same sort of results.

My results I'm sure is my ignorance while still being green at keeping bee's

Patience and Perseverance as my local Priest told me after Confession last Saturday needs to be applied with my Bee Keeping practices also...lol

 

[drlonzo]

Started out with 10 - 3# packages on April 6th. Bees had only one drawn comb each to start with, since then they have drawn out 20 frames of their own in each hive. Had to make a split on each of them 1 week ago, now have 20 hives with 2 NUC's that are building quickly.

Looks like they are doing pretty good so far.

 

[liljake83]

Booming

 

[woodsy]

Still waiting for Nucs here. 2 hives, no bees.

 

[JakeDatc]

swarm introduced to 8 frame medium with 9 foundationless frames on monday. They were rocking and rolling today in the nice weather.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v115/Socjake/Bees/IMG_0981_zpsb64c5e19.jpg

 

[dbarry]

Bees are doing great! I'm a newb that did two lang hives and one observation hive. The OH has been installed less than two weeks and already have 5 frames completely drawn out and loaded with larva. Could swarm (may need to remove a couple frames for a split). Have a new top bar hive in the yard with some queen pheromone and lemon grass oil so if they do swarm hopefully they will take up residence there.

 

[clyderoad]

Still waiting for Nucs here. 2 hives, no bees.

Seems like a long wait, I know.
Things just started to get going really good here a week or two ago. Black locust just starting to open.
I am delivering 15 locally raised nucs w/ local queens to customers on Saturday and they all have the
'hurry up, already' tone in their voices, but the nucs are just now ready.
Nice thing about nucs, they boom when everything is right and it's just about right now.

 

[woodsy]

Seems like a long wait, I know.
Things just started to get going really good here a week or two ago. Black locust just starting to open.
I am delivering 15 locally raised nucs w/ local queens to customers on Saturday and they all have the
'hurry up, already' tone in their voices, but the nucs are just now ready.
Nice thing about nucs, they boom when everything is right and it's just about right now.

I'm sure some of the bee sellers are feeling the pressure . Checked on mine about mid may and was told they would be a couple weeks late . Seeing some honeybees around they just aren't mine. Any day now......

 

[Daniel Y]

We started with 20 hives. after spring build up and swarm season we had 20. Or I should say 22 and 2 without queens. we then started queen rearing. We attempted to rear 288 queens but that did not go well. As a result we lost many of our bees but still managed to increase. we now have 54 colonies but nearly all of them are either nucs or hives that are now building up again. 16 of the nucs will be sold once they finish building up to full strength. this will leave us with 38 colonies. I plan to rear more queens in July. My goal for the year is to build up to just over 200 colonies. So far none of what we have done has been part of my plan to make our colonies so the 15 new hive we do have are mainly left overs. I will sell those 15 if we get people asking for them.

 

[GLOCK]

I have 12 nucs 9 DBL deeps and 1 TBH .
8 of my DBL. deeps are queen less right now { my doing} 4 nucs are 5 over 5 and growing and all my single nucs are making baby's . I have 1 mean hive . The flow is now just starting to amp up .
I told some one I'd sell them a couple nucs in June figuring they be ready and I had to tell them they would not be ready till June 20 I remember waiting for my first nucs .inch: I feel bad but I didn't want to sale them weak nucs it seems like I'm 3 weeks behind the low lands.

 

[David LaFerney]

Very well so far. Sold nucs, and got more than enough new comb built to replace them. Hives made queenless have been unusually successful at making new queens. Looks like my best honey crop yet. Great year so far.

 

[JakeDatc]

i need to edit my response... i had a mix of normal and shaved frames in my 8 frame medium from when i moved them from my nuc swarm box. I should have put all shaved ones like I meant to but forgot. I checked today and they were a bit confused with how comb was supposed to go so I needed to take a few chunks out and rubber band them in. hopefully i fixed it and didn't make anything worse. one positive is since they are coming from my gf's top bar they are building around 4.9-5mm.

 

[Stacykins]

I just hived two nucs Thursday after losing my bees this past winter. I was watching them, and the girls are bringing in a lot of pollen. The dandelions only just exploded here, so it is perfect for them. As I hived them, I found both queens (luck mostly, they're not marked, but my queen eyes get sharper each year), plus a nice amount of brood. I'm just going to leave them alone to do their thing for a few weeks.

I understand why the nucs were so late. The winter was brutal, and most of the spring fairly frigid. It almost feels like this year we skipped spring and went strait into summer. Haven't gotten much rain, which doesn't bode well for the farmers trying to plant their fields. Though if my neighbors alfalfa flowers (if he get busy and can't cut it fast enough, it does), that'll likely be a nice source of nectar for by bees!