Busy time of year. Beautiful time of year.
Our 12 new hives are mostly doing really well. We have two problems in the group. One hive ended up without a queen. They swarmed out of the hive and then went back in alarming Russ, the homeowner. Then there was a big bee battle with the other hive on the property. I still don't know what was going on there. Maybe one group tried to rob the other group. Russ reported that both the hives at one point were just covered with bees. I wish I could have seen it. There were dead and dying bees littering the ground. I purchased a new queen and she is dangling in the hive in a little cage while the hive gets used to her pheromones. There is a candy plug in her cage that the bees will eat through releasing her in about 2 days.
The second problem hive has all drone brood. See the picture for what it looks like. I think we have an unfertile queen because the eggs are laid in the bottom of the cells and are laid one to a cell. A laying worker, which would also produce only drone brood, lays eggs that are on the side of the cells and usually puts more than one egg in each cell. We hunted and hunted for the queen but couldn't spot her even though there are not a lot of bees. We put a frame of brood from another hive in the hive in hopes that the bees will raise their own queen. If this fails, I think this hive will not make it.
I had another bee sting last Saturday. A bee crawled up my pant leg and I was stung at the top of my leg. This sting swelled up much more than the last one. In fact the redness and swelling covers most of the inside of my thigh. I spent one day on benadryl which I should have started sooner. Ice helps. I have an appointment with an allergist because I can't go through this with every sting. In the meantime, I have learned to tuck my pants into my socks.
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