I thought they were doomed after they were robbed/ heavily killed at the end of sept. I had to dig them out during the snow on Thanksgiving. Havent looked at them until two days ago.

I had been keeping in NC for past 6 years and keeping bees was easy. Hell you could keep feeding all winter and split in feb/march-or just let them swarm. I became a expert swarm catcher and tripled my hives just by that alone (swarm commander make trapping easy)

what I learned:

Dont need screeend bottom board here. Way drier than in NC. Also I feed sugar water. That can be fed really wet 1:1 all the time since its so dry here and I get tons of wind.

I use the ultimate hive tops. in NC too much mold and here they work very well with the sun.

Carniolan bees are not like the Italian bees at all. They dont build brood as fast or as thick-kinda surprised me.

Carniolan seem to piss off easier than my italians

season is way different, summer is dry and flow is slow. lost of pollen but nectar is hard to find (i live in tooele valley-farmland and notch many houses with plants). I found out this is a high pollen state.

started with 2 packs of bees from cal ranch and caught a 3rd swarm in town. Swarm bees did well, build fast but they requeened in summer which hurt them. 1 did great (still have it) the other queen was shit and I had to requeen it after multiple egg frame swaps. By winter I had 1 strong, one okay on a new queen and one that the queen had stopped laying (it was too small and it died)

so I will be getting honey this year. I set out a couple traps and I will be splitting/building bees this year.

I really like honey but really dislike the idea of pissed off bees purposely kept on my property

Pissed off doesnt mean african bees attack.

They bump/fly in your face a lot more than my old italians. They only sting if you open up the hive without smoke. I might do that a lot.

I drive my mower next to them and they dont do anything. Kids play around them with no problems.