Today I checked the hives at Stonehurst Place (doing fabulously well) and my backyard hives. The Stonehurst hives each needed a new box - we've had great weather throughout May after the wettest April in years and years.
The bees are having a great opportunity to bring in nectar.
When I checked my backyard hives, I was particularly interested in the nuc split I had made several weeks ago. They appear to be doing fine, but I didn't want to go into their bottom box in case I might destroy a queen cell about to emerge.
Michael Bush says it never hurts to add a frame of brood and eggs to a hive when you have any question about the queen. So I have taken that approach with this nuc. I made the nuc because it's good to have a nuc in your bee yard as a resource - it can provide bees or eggs or a boost to any hive in your yard once it is established.
I am trying to be conscious of genetics. So this year I have only added frames of brood and eggs from hives that survived the winter and did not bow to the dreaded varroa vectored diseases. So I took a frame of brood and eggs from my survivor neighborhood swarm hive from last year and added it to the nuc hive. This is the second frame of brood and eggs I've added to the nuc. The first frame came from the nuc hive that overwintered (now in a full sized hive).
The nuc hive is a medium nuc, currently consisting of two boxes. I added the frame to the upper box so as not to disturb any event in the bottom box. I think the added work force will help the nuc and the eggs on the frame will give them the ability to make a queen if they have not yet been successful with that endeavor.
Whatever queen they make, she will come from survivor stock since both hives where I have pulled frames of eggs survived the winter.
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