October 27, 2023
I have been checking C hive now for three weeks. And although there are a lot of bees, I have not seen the queen or any brood or eggs in that time. I think they are hopelessly queenless, but I did not see any laying workers. Since I cannot find a mated queen anywhere at this time of year, I have tried my hand at combining C hive with the other two. I placed the two medium supers on S hive and moved 7 of the brood chamber frames on to on top of the Apimaye M hive. Left the brood box with two frames at the C hive location to hopefully catch the foragers and move them over too. Not sure of my technique, but time will tell. Feeding M and S with 1:1 sugar.

September 24, 2023
Bright, warm and sunny morning with high south wind. All the hives look strong. S and M hives have a nearly full medium of honey. C hive completely finished the one gallon medium internal feeder. Filled it back up. It is the hive with the least honey. Added internal feeder to M hive and filled it about half way. The Apimaye feeders seem to mold much quicker. Considered removing the full box I moved from the top to above the full brood box because it seems most beekeepers don’t recommend changing the order of the boxes, but since the hive was already building comb, I will take the chance. Added small external entrance feeder to S hive just to ensure a strong autumn. Removed top medium boxes from C and S hives because almost no comb has been built. Had to move the two-frame internal feeder down a box on C hive since I removed the top medium. The outer most frame had no comb and the next one had 3/4 comb but no honey, brood or bread. Removed queen excluder from S hive.

September 18, 2023
Finally got the chance to check on the bees after long weeks of forced neglect. They are surprisingly health. S hive still has nearly a full medium of honey, but they have not made much comb in the top medium. Population is down from spring but there is brood and pollen. C hive has gone through most of its honey, but it too has brood, pollen and some reduction in population. I added a medium two-frame interior syrup feeder in the top medium and are feeding them 1:1. Removed queen excluder. M hive still has about six frames of honey. I moved the seven-frame full box from the top to just above the seven-frame full brood box. Population was a little weak and the bees were the most aggressive of the three hives. I will begin feeding them next week. We had many weeks of dry conditions with no rain until recently. Last week we saw some significant showers with more in the forecast. I am pleased with how they have made it through the summer, especially with the neglect, and with the fall bloom beginning, I think we have three relatively strong hives moving into the fall.

June 25, 2023
Bees are very busy in all hives. Added two medium supers to C and S hives because comb has been built out in frames. Added a deep on top of the M hive which was full of bees in all boxes. M hive add numerous bees bearding every day outside, and they have become very aggressive. After placing the 7-frame deep on top, they have stopped bearding. Hopefully the aggression will ease as well with more room to grow.

May 23, 2023
Nice sunny May day with a cool morning and almost no breeze. Goal was to add 1:1 syrup to the M hive which is a seven frame Apimaye hive. I pulled off the cover and top feeders to check on the hive and to my delight the girls had been very busy drawing comb and filling it with brood, honey, and bee bread. There were four to five frames full of bees. See Pics page. Fortunately I had already purchased another medium Apimaye box which I placed on the top before filling and replacing the feeders. I read and/or heard many times never be caught short on equipment, so that worked out well. I did use the five frames I pulled from S hive so that they could use and clean them up. I know that is not recommended because it can spread disease, but I felt okay about it because they had spent e few days in the freezer.

May 19,2023
Cloudy but dry cool morning. Instead of adding another super to S hive, I decided since I only have three hives and expect honey from only two, to go ahead and pull frames from S and possibly C hives. C hive had about four to five frames of drawn comb with uncapped honey, so I left them to their business. S hive had nearly nine frames of completely capped honey. I pulled five frames and left the rest for another day. Since we have only harvested one other time in Sept 2020 and only two frames, I thought best to limit our harvest for now. We do not have a centrifuge, so we did the cut and crush method through a stainless steel strainer. That all went well but then transferring it to jars was more problematic. Will invest in a bucket with honey gate for the next harvest. We harvested about 216 ounces of honey and it tastes wonderful. C hive, the wild hive taken from a tree in Hunt County in April 2022, is really going strong.

May 15, 2023
Life has been so busy I haven’t posted all that has happened. G hive has no new eggs, I can’t find a new or old queen, so I think they are hopelessly queenless. Good news is I caught a swarm in the flowerpot trap on May 5 after I moved it to a fence line. I saw what appeared to be scout bees checking it out that morning. While putting up tools in the garage that afternoon, I could hear the swarm before I even saw it. See pics and video. I put the caught hive in with the queenless G hive, and they seem to be thriving with 1:1 syrup added. Will check all the hives later today and will remove internal feeder from new M hive (M for Merger of the G hive and swarm trap) and just use the top feeder of the Apimaye.