Hive observation today

[Dallasbeek]

All I know is, I see pictures of eight 10-frame boxes stacked up and can just marvel.  My first and best year, I had two deeps and a super and harvested 64 pounds of honey. Since then it has been slim pickin's around these parts, but we're having some good rains right now, so you never know what  this year will bring.

[BeeMaster2]

Wallace,
Most bees sold in the US in large numbers were raised in the south. To add to that almost all commercial beekeepers are constantly moving their bees back and forth across the country for pollination. Most of those bees are wintered in the south. A large portion of them winter in south Florida where AHB are most prevalent. I am pretty sure most of our bees have AHB genes.
Jim

[iddee]

Dallas, don't let them fool you. I had a lady ask me to help her inspect a five deep box hive. She said it was full and she couldn't handle it. I removed the top box, put the bottom 4 boxes in her garage, than set her hive back up as a single deep. She thought that since they were using both the top and bottom entrances, all boxes were full.

[220]

I ended up 5 deeps high on a hive this year, I threw a deep super of foundation on a double deep when our flow hit and they drew and filled it in 12 days so I put on another. They did the same drawing and filling in less than 2 weeks, first super still wasnt fully capped so threw on a third.
Have pulled 2  boxes off and a few frames and its still 4 high.

[Dallasbeek]

Dallas, don't let them fool you. I had a lady ask me to help her inspect a five deep box hive. She said it was full and she couldn't handle it. I removed the top box, put the bottom 4 boxes in her garage, than set her hive back up as a single deep. She thought that since they were using both the top and bottom entrances, all boxes were full.

That may be true of most of them, Wally.  If I had even 5 boxes stacked up, I'd definitely split and probably go to top bar hives. 

[bwallace23350]

Wallace,
Most bees sold in the US in large numbers were raised in the south. To add to that almost all commercial beekeepers are constantly moving their bees back and forth across the country for pollination. Most of those bees are wintered in the south. A large portion of them winter in south Florida where AHB are most prevalent. I am pretty sure most of our bees have AHB genes.
Jim

Thanks. Well perhaps that is not such a bad thing to get some of those hardy genes in the gene pool. I am hoping to make a split soon and hope to get some good feral genes added into the split.

[bwallace23350]

Probably not even going to try to feed the bees now. Clover is coming up and starting to bloom.

[eltalia]

Probably not even going to try to feed the bees now. Clover is coming up and starting to bloom.

Run a queen restrictor on the entrance for at least a week before checking.
If you then spot queen cells you can act.

Bill

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

Hey Bill, Buddy, I use entrance queen excluders on occasion.

They are also excellent for holding drones in the hive for breeding purposes.  See ya mate, cheers.
Blessings

[eltalia]

Hey Bill, Buddy, I use entrance queen excluders on occasion.

They are also excellent for holding drones in the hive for breeding purposes.  See ya mate, cheers.
Blessings

Long been my most loved (?) tool in the apiary. One can play some very
intense 'chess' with bees whilst using something very foreign to their
principle of free Reign.. heh heh ;-)))

Hearing your stormy weather I ask can you top 340mm (13.6") in a
week..?..hah ha?aaaa.
On the back of it now I hope.. some bees will be feeling the pinch an'
looking for a flying feed! :-))

Bill