I knew beekeeping wouldn't always be easy

The saga of my bees....or lack thereof!

Hive #2 continues to flourish.  In fact, I think that when I can get into the hive again, I may add a super because they are running out of space in that deep hive. But I may not need to with what I hope is the solution to Hive #1's issues.

Hive #1 is still struggling.  All week I have been thinking, reading and having conversations about what my next steps are for #1. One person I talked with was Charles Andros, a NH beekeeper who I didn't know.  He was great, spending a good amount of time on the phone with me and not selling me the queen bee I had asked to buy. Instead he offered me some good advice.

His advice was to merge the two hives.  He feared just adding another queen to Hive #2 might not get me anywhere because it might end up the same way with the queen dying. He said something about not enough brood, I think.  (It was a lot to absorb).

But I did understand some other stuff :).

I remove the queen cell in Hive#1...the one I spotted last week during an inspection.  If that queen is born, one of the queens will be killed. It's best it's the current queen in Hive #2 because we know what she is and she's clearly producing well based on the growth in that hive.  I sort of hate to upset the balance.

Next I will add the new hive to the top of the old hive with a sheet or two of newspaper between them. The bees will begin to adjust to their new friends in the upper hive while they are eating through the newspaper. By the time they do that, they should be acclimated. I will also add the queen excluder under the newspaper.

For those of you who don't know, a queen excluder is a a thin cover that has, in my case, metal slots that bees can fit through.  But the queen can't fit through it.  By adding that, should there be another queen down below, she wouldn't be able to get up to where Hive#2's bees are in the deep hive above.  After a few weeks, I'd remove the excluder. 

I sure hope this works.  The idea is that by doing this, the new hive can bring back the older hive and later on this season, I can make another nuc to try to expand into two smaller hives rather than one large hive. I'm not sure how I'll handle these deep hives. I won't be able to lift them off.

I may need to reduce Hive #1 which has two deeps, by consolidating into one deep. I can handle two deep hives but not three...not if they need to be lifted. I'll think about this for the next few days until I can do this. The weather here has been too rainy to want to go into the hives. I'll wait for a sunny day, hopefully Sunday. 

Stay tuned.