A little Report

As we all embrace August, the honey bees are still busy and alive! The last 10 days have been hot and humid , and I wonder if this weather is affecting the bees.

Shakopee Apiary:

Green Hive

Today, we did not locate the queen, but her egg laying pattern is less than ideal. It is rather random and mediocre. We saw eggs but they are "spotty", seen here and there and not as a beautiful mass. Of course, this colony is being treated for V. mites , and the warm and humid temperature might not be optimal for anyone to work properly. Otherwise, we can see that they are working at building combs and gathering pollen and nectar, but at a very slow pace. I will go back Saturday to replace the medication and put another tray of thymol for another 2 weeks, then the treatment will be completed. We really want those Carniolan bees to survive and come back stronger next spring. I hope our TLC will work.

Purple Hive

I don't want to jinx ourselves but this Italian colony is doing fantastic. It is still overflowing with honey bees. When we open the hive, it looks like a soup that is over boiling, bees are spilling over board. It is very intense. The queen is doing an excellent job laying eggs in a beautiful, solid pattern. Today, we wanted to do a full inspection (looking at every frames in all boxes) but they were a little annoyed with us. They are working very hard for us now. They have started to build white combs in the second super, and they have an enormous reserve of honey for themselves. I noticed few Varroa mites. We will treat the entire colony AFTER harvesting the honey.

Chanhassen Apiary:

We only inspected the Green original colony with the new queen. We are keeping a very close eye on it. We do not want another swarming event.

We saw the queen, painted blue (she looks like a smurf!) She looked fine and busy crawling on the frame. There were eggs, the pattern is nice and uniform. However, I feel that I should see more eggs. The colony's population is still moderate. I also saw some Varroa mites. We will treat in the fall after the potential honey harvest. They seem a little slow to build combs in their only super. However in their defence, they still have room in their "living quarter" to store pollen, nectar and honey. Hopefully they will give us some honey this year.

The swarmed colony with the old queen will be inspected Sunday with a friend of mine. I hope to show her a good healthy hive.