Saturday, June 3, 2017

Hives continue to build up

Olea's seems to have recovered from the MAQs with bees on all the combs once again.  I have to assume that some of the brood died while the nurse bees were keeping away, but details will have to wait until an inspection is done, and none is planned soon.
 #1- There is some comb drawn in the top box and a good brood pattern in the bottom box.  The queen was not seen.  Alcohol wash- 1 mite.
#2- some drawn comb in the top box.
#3- top box not inspected, but probably has some drawn comb as there were a lot of bees on the central frames.  I had prepared to make a split so I went through each frame of the bottom box.  There box was full of bees and there were a few frames with a good brood pattern and three frames with drone brood, two of which are foundationless frames.  I saw neither the queen nor any eggs so I did not make a split.
The feral nuc has a small amount of drone brood and some freshly drawn comb.  The colony is dying and will soon be gone.  I will then use the new comb in a future split.
There have been some mildly aggressive bees in the past few days.  I am trying to determine from which colony they are coming.  If I can figure that out I may re-queen it.