Get the hives off the ground, about a foot or so. That way the skunks are forced to stand up, leaving their bellies exposed to bee stings.

The carpet tack strips are supposed to be laid on the ground in front of the hive, so the skunks can't stand there.

Bears need electric fencing. And it needs to be spaced far enough from the hives so the bears can't reach either.

Thank you!
The hive is doing well.
The wife is excited to see the workers delivering pollen and seeing the queen active on the few times she's opened the hive.
The workers are busy building comb and we're looking forward to the growth of the hive.
I have much to learn; but it's nice to be able to stand in the background and just support her when she needs the help.
She's taken this seriously; and she's seriously determined to do a good job for the bees.

We have two lines that we use.
1. Danish Buckfast- We purchase large amounts every year from Fergusons Apiary in Ontario.
2. Carniolan/ Italian- this line was developed by a friend that was a queen breeder here in Maine.

With both lines, we analyze their performance and select from the best to graft from. We work with other queen breeders and have a few virgins from our best, inseminated with specific germplasm. The Buckfast gets inseminated with Buckfast semen to maintain purity in our line. This is an ongoing effort and takes some very careful record keeping as we don't want to see inbreeding depression but Buckfast breeding relies on some level of inbreeding (Drone Mothers are Sister Queens). The Carnica line has been undergoing some changes as we are beginning to select more for VSH/ SMR and LMPG. we have a few daughters getting inseminated with some great VSH stock this year and look forward to increasing those behaviors in both lines. This is also an ongoing effort between my friend and I. He has moved to NC but I ship him queens each fall so that he can keep that northern strain going and he ships me early season queens each spring to help with making up Nucs/splits. He was actually up here yesterday and today and brought me a bunch of nucs and extra queens and helped grade some of our breeder queens for this season. He is now working with Dave Tarpy and a few others on some pretty cool projects down in North Carolina which will soon be published in the American Bee Journal. He is also the person that introduced me to Queen Rearing and later on Bee Breeding and is responsible for me running singles. He managed thousands of colonies this way back when he had his commercial operation and passed a lot of that info on to me. I owe him a great deal...

Sounds like a great mentor with lots of experience!

@cuttingedge

Can you give me a rundown on your experience with the buckfasts? I'm looking for something different for the altitude and winters we get here. I've also thought about trying to get the Nordic brown queens here

Are you selling Buckfast queens?  If so how would I order a few to try?

I captured a swarm yesterday evening - first time I ever got one this way.  A few years ago had a swarm make their new home in a nuc box we set out for them

Probably from one of my hives.   Very close to them, maybe 50’ away.   Hadn’t been able to inspect the hives since last weekend due to long days at work, since the union decided to go on strike.  
They were balled up around the base of a small apple tree outside of my fenced in garden, where the hives are
Saw them as I finished up transplanting some plants last evening and making a few passes in the small field with the tractor mower.  Made a quick trip back to the house to get the bee gear and a nuc box and some frames
Scooped most up and shook them into the hive.  Waited for the rest to make their way in so I must’ve got the queen.  She may have been inside the trunk guard plastic sleeve that fortunately wasn’t snapped up closed.  
They did get a bit agitated as I tried to scoop up the ones in the higher grass near the ground.  
Took the nuc box back to the house, and put some syrup in a feeder next to the box.  Hopefully they decide to stay.  

I’m going to need to build a few more hive boxes, bases, and lids, sooner than I planned .

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How are the captives doing? Have they settled in?
This is fascinating.

They seem to be doing OK.  Not moved on anyways

We are working long days due to union going out on strike, so all my home activities are suffering.  Haven’t been able to get in a do any inspections in last two weeks.  
I get these a cup of bee syrup every night if I can , until they are well off and the queen is laying eggs.  Wasn’t able to spot her when I found them.

I picked up my first swarm of the year on Tuesday, smallish -- about the size of a package. It was a dark and stormy night, almost literally. The storms were rolling through, sun was setting, and I got a call from a buddy about a swarm under an awning at his shop. They were incredibly calm. I put them in a brood box with 3 frames of old comb, some frames with foundation, and a frame feeder. I got about 90% of them just by scooping with a plastic trowel. I used a vacuum to pick up all but a few stragglers into a screened bucket; they were reunited by the end of the evening down in the beeyard.

I'll check on them Saturday to see how they're doing. I plan to pull a frame of brood from another hive or two to stick in there. If there are no eggs, I'll consider ordering a queen. But, I may just ensure that there are eggs on the other frames and let them raise their own queen. TBD

When doing the AAR with my wife, she assumed that I had already allocated all the hardware to the other hives. She thought that I had gone shopping before picking up the swarm. She clearly hasn't looked around the garage recently. I am out of inner covers and running low on bases and telescoping covers. I have not yet started building the long langstroths but still intend to do so.

That takes me to 9 managed hives and 1 unmanaged hive. The unmanaged hive is in a large treelimb, about 15 ft off the ground. It gets to stay where it is.

I finally had time to check out all my hives.
The swarm is doing Ok.  Found the queen.  New queen, not sure if she was able to go out an mate yet - been nice and warm all week so I hope so.
Got her marked.  Forgot to bring my iPhone for pictures.

My orange hive, the original queen is still there and still laying lots of eggs.  They are making lots of honey, but haven’t stored much in the super yet.

The blue hive - tons of bees. Some brood but not a lot.   Didn’t see the queen and there were many queen cells.  Some I accidentally damaged as they were all on the bottom of the frames .  Shame as she was a prolific queen, and only a year old.

The yellow hive.  This is the one I had trouble with late last summer with laying workers.  Well it looks like they got rid of the queen since the last inspection, maybe two weeks ago.  All I saw were drone cells Today .  All scattered over.   The queen was laying a decent amount of eggs, and the hive was not crowded two weeks ago.  I put a frame from the orange hive with some uncapped brood in there, to see if it would stimulate them to make a queen.

My two new package hives from Barnyard Bees.   Those are doing well.  Queens are already laying eggs, and they are making honey and comb.  His bees seem to like making funky lobe type comb, not just drawing out from foundation,

The saskatraz box.  That one is a mystery.   There were probably only maybe 200 saskatraz bees plus the (unmarked) queen.  I put a frame with capped mostly brood from my blue box two weeks ago.  Now that box is loaded with bees, but no sign of a laying queen.  Didn’t spot any queen today,not to say it might not be a new virgin queen from somewhere.   They made a bunch of nice clear comb, but it wasn’t attached completely to the foundation on the frame, and it fell off when I was checking it out.  Lots of honey in it.   I wonder if swarm took that over?   No way all those bees came from that one frame.

I also tried to get a split going with frames from the blue box, maybe a month ago.   Not a lot of bees left there, and despit what I thought were some queen cups being made about two weeks ago - nothing.  Just them making and storing honey now.

One of my Layens hives may be queenless. Same one that had a dead queen in the package, and was replaced. Other hives seem to be doing well, except on seems to not be laying much. Bee's aren't doing a supercedure on her, so I guess they're satisfied? Anyways, the first batches of cells should be emerging the next few days.

Interestingly, I went to a new beeks house to check her hive, cause she reported that the queen cage was covered in comb, right over the screen, and the candy tube was still there. Hive installed a week ago. She'd taken the screen off after finding the comb over it, didn't see a queen (she also dropped the frame it was on, so...)

We believe her "Nuc" was just a package with frames of various types and a strange queen.

There was larva and eggs in the frames. Best as I can figure, the caged queen was dead, but there must have been a queen dumped into the nuc if they shook them out, or on a frame that they pulled. There were also several supercedure cells on the face of the comb. Either way, she's going to have a new queen in a few days. Did not find the queen, but the evidence was there.

I got a package from Barnyard Bees also. Got them installed, been feeding them 1:1 syrup, and they seem to be happy.

I opened the hive briefly a few days after installing them. They had built a little comb on the black plastic foundation and also had some "lobe type" comb; I wonder why they do that?

Haven't spotted the queen yet but my last inspection was  a bit cursory as I wasn't veiled. Also it's been rainy the last few days so inspection has been delayed.

They aren't gobbling down the syrup like they did in Nuevo Mehico, but they are  bringing in the pollen like crazy!

Lobe type comb? are you talking about comb built with a gap above the foundation/existing comb?

If that's the case, it seems to happen more with plastic foundation, OR if the comb has been destroyed in some way, such as scraping out comb for whatever reason.

Or if there's too much of a gap between frames.

Foundations need more wax on them...

It could be.   But there’s a mix of old (that had comb scraped off) as well as new unused frames/foundation.   I notice he (barnyard bees) likes to use the open frames with wires and just a small strip of starter at the top of the frame.  
I ordered a couple new queens from him.  Will be another exhausting day getting rid of the possible egg laying workers.

We have nice sunny wx today, so I opened the hive for inspection today. There are about 4-5 total frames of honey plus some partials, and some bee bread, but I couldn't find any brood. How long does the queen take to start laying?

I also found 3-4 frames that were cross-combed; they were completely connected together.

The packages I installed two weeks ago(? - I am loosing track of time with all the hours they make us work while the union is on strike) she was laying eggs within that time.  
Are you providing some extra food, too, like syrup?

Yes, 1:1 syrup in an entrance feeder.



They aren't eating it as fast as they did in New Mexico; I'd replace 2 jars in 3 days then. Now it's like 1 jar in 3 days. That was with my top bar hives.

I posted this video I took last summer, over in teams just a few minutes ago.  But I figured you guys might appreciate it more here
Very bad summer for rain, we had zero for the entire month of July AND August
All the flowers dried up.  Milkweed was done , baked, just days after it bloomed.  
Nothing for the bees to eat of consequence for two months.  So I was feeding them quite a bit of syrup
For days I’d go up in the morning or afternoon, often twice a day to fill up the feed cups.  Always on the ground.  No wind, and I didn’t think squirrels or birds were doing that
Until I saw how myself

It would become a real frenzy while they were feeding. They’d empty a full cup in maybe ten minutes, if that long
I actually worried they might be killing each other for syrup.  So later I started putting cups in an empty super above the top board.  Eventually I got those troughs that replace a couple frames in the deep boxes

New Fungus Strain Effective against Varroa Mites in Honeybee Colonies

Wife came in in a panic, told me "There's a TON of tiny beetles all over your hive!"

So I went out and opened the hive. I found a few of them inside the top cover, a very few inside the inner cover, and couldn't see any inside the hive itself. Here's some pics:

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Do these look like hive beetles to you? What do I do about them?

They are the same beetles that infested the black locust and maple trees that we cut down near our house. There are some huge logs from those trees just a few feet from the hive.

Will the girls clean house on them or should I do something?

BTW I can only find drone cells, not worker cells; I'm ordering a new queen tonight.

If the hive is getting weak they could be a problem, whatever they are.  

Losing queens can be nerve wracking.  
The one hive that was doing great, had several queen cells.  Put the replacement queen cage in a week ago.  Checked Sunday - Looks like they killed her, and no sign of any new (virgin) queen.  I guess she would’nt be laying eggs yet, if there was one , but ordered a new one

The other that had the laying workers - the remaining bees never even tried to get her out of the cage.   Most of the ones I shook out the week before never returned to the hive.  So let her loose on Sunday.  Not sure what they will do with her.  
I didn’t find the previous (marked queen).  So maybe she left with small swarm or was killed.  I don’t recall seeing any queen cells in there prior to her disappearance

Did you put a queen in a hive with queen cells?

I did do that, and when I checked Sunday, no queen, and the queen cells were all emptied or even dismantled.  
They got into her cage through the candy for sure
I was too impatient to get that hive moving again with brood.  Those bees had been the most productive honey makers so far this year.

You learned the hard way to not put a queen in a hive with queen cells.
Next time, remove the cells, and don't remove the cork on the candy end for 3 days to a week after putting in the hive

dupe

I think I'm hosed.

No brood is visible, there are several drone cells developing. On Wednesday I ordered a new fertilized queen for 2 day delivery; 5 days later she's still not here. The supplier says that the package is "out for delivery..." meaning it's in a UPS van, baking in the hot sun.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but even if she starts laying as soon as she gets here, it'll be mid-July before any of her progeny starts hatching, and even longer before they start foraging... like the end of July. That gives them August and part of September to build up stores for the winter.

Maybe I should write off the hive for this year? I'm very discouraged.

If by some chance she does arrive alive today, should I introduce her the same way I introduced the other queen? I see some talk about destroying queen supersedure cells first.

It turns out it was not a good time for new queens either.  Rainy every day for at least a week.   Still lousy weather, mostly.  
One of the swarms I caught I thought had a queen laying some eggs.  But now nothing in that box as far as brood.   Still lots of bees.  
I hadn’t been able to check the swarm I collected at the base of the apple tree closely yet.  I did find the new queen and got her marked a couple weeks ago.   But not been able to see if she’s making brood.   That box was moved to a different location.
It’s tougher now to with my work schedule and all the mandatory OT.   At least no weekends scheduled.

Is that your only hive?
I take frames of brood (capped and uncapped mix) and put them in those sorts of hives when I can, to help keep them going.  

Yes, it is my only hive.

I had to leave my hives in NM when I  moved here.

Update:

I finally got my queen. After 5 days (and I paid UPS for a 2-day delivery!) she arrived dead as a hammer, along with 5 attendants, all dead.

I spoke to some locals, most of whom were very willing to sell me a queen. ONE guy who sells queens and nucs gave me a lot of advice:

1. There may have been a virgin queen in the package; she'd have killed the mated queen as soon as I released her. If this is the case, and if she's gotten herself mated, I should see some worker brood at about this time or the next week or so. If there's ANY queen in the hive, a new queen will be killed immediately.

2. It's very late in the season. The bees from the package will be kind of old and grumpy, and it'll be difficult to get them to accept a new queen. If I introduced a new queen and she was accepted, it'd be the middle of July before I saw any new bees, and the old bees will be unlikely to nurse the new bees. So it'll realistically be the end of July/first week of August before they start to forage. That isn't enough time to build up stores for the year.

So what I'm going to do is just cut my losses this year, letting the current hive coast till they die. I'll keep tabs on them and report if anything interesting happens. IF someone wants to get me involved with a swarm in the mid-to-late summer I'll grab it, but it's not likely; I'm not known to anyone here and have never dealt with a swarm before.

So I'm going to suit up, heat up the smoker and visit the hive.

It's quite likely that the bees killed your queen, because if they had queen cells, they would have thought they were queen right, and the queen you added an intruder.

Well, hush my mouf.

I suited up and made a thorough hive inspection. I didn't have my hive tool when I opened it up the first two times and couldn't get to where the action was.

There's LOTS of larva being capped there! Worker AND drones! (Sorry for the blurry picture.)

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There was another frame that was about 80% covered with capped worker larva, but I didn't get a pic of that.

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They are working on 5 frames so far and starting on #6!

So it looks like I'm in business for this summer.

I'm pretty happy about it. At the rate they are  building,  they'll max out the  bottom box by the end of July.

I have a deep and a shallow super ready.

And I'm not planning to harvest this year; I plan to feed them all winter long if need be.

Welp.
I opened the hive this morning and found SEVEN out of ten frames fully or partially drawn out! Lots of honey, LOTS of brood.

It's been hotter'n the hubs of heck here. Here's how I prepared my hive:

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I propped the telescoping lid open to allow heat transfer. Low temps here at night are going into the 70s; high temps are 104-106. The plywood leaning against the right side faces due west, to keep the hot afternoon sun off the hive; the highest temps occur about 5- 6- 7 o'clock. The concrete on top is to keep the wind from blowing the hive over. We occasionally get some high winds out here.

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The 7th frame is as far as they've progressed; you can see a couple of patches where they've started drawing comb.


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5 frames back we see solid comb with capped & uncapped honey.

So there's obviously a viable queen there, even if I haven't seen her. The rest of the frames are solidly packed with either worker brood or honey!

So in a week or so I'll put the 2nd box on top. It'll be mid-July by then; should I put a shallow or a deep box on?

Maybe you can tell, I'm pretty excited about it all!

There's an irrigation ditch about 30' to the left of these pics; my wife had a big victory garden going this year!

BTW should I start medicating them for varrora with thymol strips or something else? Also, what about bacteria/viral protection?