We went down to Nuyaka to move a hive of golden Italians tonight. The location is great for the bees, but it’s so far away that we can’t really keep an eye on them as well as we’d like.
Despite the lack of assistance from us, the girls seem to have made it through the winter just fine and are doing a nice job of building up brood for this season. We took them to Living Kitchen and set them up with a jar of sugar water. We’ll take them a Brood Builder patty (think of it as a sort of Clif Bar for bees) and check the bottom hive body on Saturday morning. We wanted to leave them alone and give them a chance to settle in tonight, as they’d had a stressful evening.
We had to get to Nuyaka while it was still light out to make sure everything was OK with the hive and get set up to move it, but we waited until dusk to do the actual move so the bees would be back in the hive and wouldn’t get left behind. We’d parked very close to the hive, and it was cool to watch the girls fly around the car. Some of them kept looking in the windows at us. If I’d had better light, I would have taken video, because it was cool to sit in the car and watch them.
The Buckfasts we installed yesterday are quite vigorous and seem to be a rather feisty lot, which is how we like them. I’m looking forward to getting our Russians and Carnies.
The Italians we have in the garden are looking a bit lethargic, so I think we’re going to requeen that hive if it doesn’t perk up soon. We’re looking at either Minnesota Hygienic or survivor stock. We’ll see how that goes.
Emily
Red Fork Hippie 