SharW75
Overrun with beasties
One of the families in our daughter's 4H group was wanting to get out of beekeeping. They had a wild swarm move into their empty hive last year, and those bees made it through the winter in great shape. Last weekend, we went to their house and took the bees, hive and all, home to our house. It was cold, so the kids weren't able to inspect the hive until Tuesday. When they opened it, they found LOTS of bees, but no queen. Thankfully, there were 4 new queen cells, and with so many bees, the kids were able to take two cells and several frames of bees and split the hive. So, we went from no bees to two new hives in a couple of days! We are letting them settle in, then the kids are going to treat them for mites before the package of bees we ordered arrive.
Neither of the hives we started out with last spring survived the winter. We had hopes our larger hive would make it, but sadly it didn't. We ordered a new package, to be shipped around the 2nd of May, so we will have three hives soon! It will be exciting to compare the differences between the wild bees and the strain (Buckfast) we ordered.
Neither of the hives we started out with last spring survived the winter. We had hopes our larger hive would make it, but sadly it didn't. We ordered a new package, to be shipped around the 2nd of May, so we will have three hives soon! It will be exciting to compare the differences between the wild bees and the strain (Buckfast) we ordered.
