Hive # 3.5

 I number my hives so it makes it easier to talk about them (mostly to myself) and to keep  records. At first I put numbers on the brood boxes but then I would change out boxes and soon those numbers disappeared. I need to find a way so I can physically number them again incase I lose my mind one day and can't remember which is which. 

Hive 1 is easy, the bees are quite dark, way darker than the others. Hive 2 battles with some chalk brood each spring. Hive 3 is our very fertile queen hive. Its big and bold. But I love our bees, they are always so calm and the only time I get a sting is when I accidently pinch one on the back of my knee or on my finger.  

This spring hive 3 was bursting at the seams so I decided to try my hand at doing a walk away split. Meaning, removing all stages of eggs and larvae and not checking for the queen. (but I decided to look for her and not take her) I set up the new hive with 5 frames. Eggs, nurse bees, larvae, pollen and honey.  I told James it would be hive # 3.5 until it produced a queen and she started laying. Within a short period of time, I found queen cells. A month later...we found lots of eggs. I was leery about the quality of the queen since the bees would make a emergency queen and they aren't necessarily as good as a swarm queen. 

Small green hive is 3.5 when we first did the split

But it seemed 3.5 inherited her Mums fertile genes. In no time it was huge. It made me so happy to see the queen turned out to be a winner. James asked me....so guess that is hive 4 now... but I just couldn't bring myself to change its name. I wanted to remember that this split had come from Hive 3. So now it is lovingly called Hive 3.5.

While checking to see how much honey they had made in Aug, I discovered they had almost filled a full deep super. So I was pretty happy.

Now we wait, and hopefully they make it thru the winter and emerge strong in the spring

#3.5 at the end of summer