Frustration on July 1

Yesterday I went into the hive to take a few frames of brood from Hive 1 and add them to Hive 2. The reason for this was to have brook born in Hive 2 to strengthen the hive.  They need the worker bees to help the queen thrive.

As you know, Hive 1 made it through the winter and started out very strong.  In fact, I was worried that they might swarm because the hive was so full.  I had been thinking of taking out some brood frames but didn't for a lot of reasons.  Mainly because I hadn't done it before.  So I waited...too long I fear.

When I opened Hive 1, I was surprised how easy it was because I didn't have swarms of bees all around me like the last time.  I lifted off the super loaded with honey (I must extract that next week!), the mostly empty new super, then the top bottom deep, and began checking frames in the bottom deep...that's where most of the brood should be.

I looked at several frames that had very little on them.  At the end, I found a few frames with some brood but not that many bees...some but not loaded....and put them aside for Hive 2.

I continued looking at frames and one frame, in particular, had wax built up in one corner of the frame, like a large bulge...they looked like drone cells though. I'm not sure.  In the middle of it was what looked like a queen cell.  And I left it there, for better or for worse.

To me, it looks like that hive swarmed but part of the colony stayed and maybe they are making themselves a queen.  There also looked to be some larvae in the cells on a few frames.  And there were clusters of bees in certain sections.  So that told me I may still have a queen but I never saw her. Perhaps she's getting old. This would be her second year with me.

I probably shouldn't have taken out those two frames for Hive 2.  It may weaken Hive 1 too much. But it's done and we'll just have to see what happens next.  It's an interesting process, this beekeeping.

My strategy for the rest of the season is to let it go.  If a queen dies, let them make a new one.

I will harvest my honey next week so I at least have that.  If the hives are not thriving at the end of the season..September-ish, I will merge them into one hive to obtain a stronger hive that would help them make it through the winter.  Perhaps I wasn't meant to have two hives.