With fall in the air and winter just around the corner, I opened my hive today for a final inspection. The hive has approx 30,000 to 40,000 female bees. The drones or males have been killed or run out of the hive prior to winter arriving. The drones have served their purpose and are no longer needed. A large healthy hive in the fall will ensure a strong hive in the spring. My next project will be to insulate the hive with straw. The straw helps keep the heat inside the hive and block the cold windy weather we enjoy here in Michigan.

First Swarm

As cold as this spring has been, I was surprised when my bees swarmed yesterday. Like all other beekeepers, I was disappointed to have so many bees leave the hive with the swarm. The swarm gathered high in a tree so I was unable to retrieve them. I went through the entire hive today to make sure there were no other queen cells. I was pleasantly surprised to see the hive still contained a large number of bees. The old queen that left with the swarm was 3 years old and needed to be replaced. The bees did all the work requeening, as it should bee.

Bees On The Wing

Yesterday and today the weather was warm enough for my bees to take flight. I took advantage of the warm weather and opened the hive for an early spring inspection. First, I took the winter wrap of hay off the hive. I had reduced the hive to 3 supers for the winter. Going into winter, I had a very large colony and could not reduce the size of the hive down to two supers. I am amazed at how large my colony is this spring. The colony is the largest I have had in the spring after a long cold winter. I noticed the bees had loaded pollen sacs when they returned to the hive. Because so little is in bloom here, I gave the bees an early spring feeding of a simple sugar syrup.