Jan 30, 15

I've been feeding the Nucs on top with 2-1 sugar water and also have a 2-quart feeder on the back porch for open feeding - mostly to see how they are doing for 'my sake'.

It's been over a week and 2 of the Nuc's have almost taken a whole quart jar of sugar water, but 1 has consumed almost 1/2 now.  I guess they aren't as hungry as the others.  I'd expected this from this pictular hive as it seemed to be a little heavier but had expected the middle Nuc to take up more as I'd seen more been in it - compared to the other 2 Nucs.  Who know ??

I've also added a 2 gallon feeder of 2-1 to one of the double boxes, but they haven't taken much - maybe 2 inches.  That's still a lot, but I'm sure I lost some setting it up so as long as they know it's there...I'm happy.  It was about 3 inches away from their cluster but believe they've found it.  On another hive - a single, I added a wedge, and added a top feeder, but only filled one have about 1/2 way.  I've checked on this a couple of times, but haven't noticed them feeding for some reason.  I'll keep an eye out on them.

As all the 'candy' has been eaten I'd like to add some more to them tomorrow if possible.  The 'candy' has some pollen sub in it also for them.  The hive, at the road, was kind of pissy the other day whenever I opened it up and actually banged me a few times while I was inspecting the top box.  I don't know why - but need to inspect it soon and check on the queens status.  I'd given then a new queen last fall - but saw she was laying before winter..so who knows.  The queen, I believe was 1 of my VSH queens and the other boxes aren't acting the same way.

more later ..

Jan 8, 2015

It was 19 at the house whenever I left this am.  Hopefully, the bees are staying warm and I don't anticipate to see them until this weekend.  I haven't been in the hives for about a month, but am still seeing them fly - and have food 'out' in case they need more.

So far I'm down 5 hives - but still have 5 'full' hives of which 3 are in double-deeps and the other 3 are Nuc's that I'm over wintering with new VSH queens.  2 of the VSH queens are from Asheville and 1 is from Georgia.

I scraped and cleaned up the boxes already for spring so they should be ready to go .. fingers crossed ..whenever spring actually starts and think I have enough hive components for another 6 hives.  I've also made some contacts with a few others that are interested in having/hosting some of my hives.  I need to do some serious 'build-ups' this spring if I can, as I'd like to at least double my hives or possibly get to about 16.  I'll be doing this mostly from queen rearing and making up my own Nuc's as I haven't decided to purchase any more packages or nuc's yet from the club.  I might have to in order to get the bees - but we'll see how it goes in a couple of months.  Of course, it'll be 'too late' to order then.  ha ha 

Made my reservations for the SC/NC hosted meeting in Monroe NC for next month and am excited to attend.

More later ..

mid june 2014 update

Well, I admit it - I've been slack.  I haven't posted anything about what's been going on around the apiary.  Let me try to sum up what's happened over the last few months ..

>  over wintered with 4 hives, lost 1 and was down to 3.
> purchased a couple of packages (wish I hadn't and didn't I say I had this issue last year?)
> had to re-queen 3 hives and then supply 2 brood stocks to get those up and running - all from the 2 packages I purchased.  Even the queens I purchased didn't go to well and had to be re-queened from 'my' stock.
> up to 7 hives now - and stable.
> built a top bar hive but had to queen it from "my" stock from grafting.  seems to be doing well so far with the new queen in there about 3 weeks now (from hatch out)
> tried my hand at grafting again on 5/31.  grafted 24 cells and got a survival (my issues I'm sure) of 15 queen cells.  made up 9 nuc's and will check this week for eggs.
> made 3 other splits.

So, I guess I've been busy and hopefully these 9 nucs will have good queens in them and I'll be able to double-stack nuc's and over-winter them this year in preparation for next years stock.

I have found a local organic farmer who has agreed and want's a couple of hives.  As soon as I have a couple of the nuc's going well I'm going to move them over there for the winter - and then into a standard hive configuration next year. 

I hope to pull some honey within the next week and hopefully should get about 70# of honey from the 6 hives I've managed to 'maintain'. 

Here's what the apiary looks like now ..  and some other misc pictures of the area. 

You'll need to overlook the untidiness of the surrounding area as I haven't had a chance to 'clean-up' yet ..

3-29-14 split and angry hive

I'd wanted to check on the hives for a few minutes to see how they were doing.  2 of the existing hives were doing fine and since it was kind of late I decided not to check on the new packages other than to add some sugar water if they needed.

I have to take a frame of brood from H2 and add it to the 'danny' nuc.  This is a nuc I'd gotten back, or specifically 1 of the 3 queens he was 'banking' for me over the winter, and it need some additional resources.  I added another quart of some sugar water to them also.

In inspecting the angry hive I noticed on frame 5, of the top brood box, that there were 2 queen cells - of which 1 was empty and the other was capped.  I took it along with 3 other frames of brood, honey, and some pollen stores and made a split.  I need to check the bottom of this hive to see what's going on there as well as inspect all the other boxes before i start adding the supers.

As the other hives seem to be 'stocking' up some sugar water and nectar, I'll probably add supers to them so that they will 'grow' up and not want to swarm.  It's going to be in the 80's all week and the pollen is almost in full bloom with nectar being brought in daily.

Mike asked me to come over to his house last Friday and help him look for his queens as he hadn't been able to find them on the new packages.  We found 1, which already had the 'color marking' removed from it but weren't able to find the other one.  Hopefully he can find it today, or he'll need to order a queen at the mtg tomorrow.

more later after another inspection ..

3-22-14 New packages

I'd decided to order another package this spring but as luck turned out I was able to purchase another from a friend on delivery day - so now I have 2 packages to install.  I had the equipment and it seemed like a good idea.  We arrived a few minutes after all the packages did from Georgia and after about a 30 minute wait or so, we were back on the road again.  After a short stop to grab something to eat I arrived home around 7 and as the weather was clear and in the mid 50's I decided to put the packages in.  It's a good thing I did that night as neither of the syrup cans had actually been pierced so the bees didn't have anything to eat during their trip from Georgia.  I'd sprayed some 1-1 water on them while I was suiting up and wondered why they were all working the side of the box so intensively - now I know.

I decided to, after puncturing some holes in the syrup cans, to leave them in the hives till they were empty and also feed some 1-1 so I shook most of the bees out of their package box, turned that can over for them and after putting a single deep on top of one of the hives, said good night.  The other package followed the same process, but instead I used 2 super boxes.  Later that night I remembered that I hadn't removed the corks from the queen cages but did so Sunday afternoon.  Both queens were marked so finding them was quite easy and although the bees seemed pretty anxious for their queen to come out - I widened the candy 'cork' a little and left them in their cages.  The queens should be out today and I'll check in a few days as the weather is supposed to be below freezing tonight and tomorrow evening.

I'd gotten 1 of my queens back from Danny a few days earlier and he was gracious to loan me a 5-frame nuc box and some brood - so I ended up with a Nuc instead of 3 queens.  I'd rather had the 3 queens back and since he didn't ever graph from the queen he wanted and (I don't believe) didn't keep track of whether this was one of my actual queens from last year - I'll just have to monitor and see what I actually have.  I didn't have a chance to look in the Nuc so we'll see what's there in a few days.  I had placed this Nuc close to the other hives but since the other hives wanted to 'rob it out' I moved it to another location.

I added a pollen patty to each of the hives whenever I set them up to provide some additional food as well as the sugar water and as I've seen some some flyers now and guard bees on the entrances - hopefully they will keep going and building up well.

Most of what has already started blooming, in a 'normal' year has either budded up - or starting to flower some, I'm hoping this late cold snap won't cause any issues.

More later, and I'll try to put some pictures in here later whenever I get a chance to take them.

3-9-14 Hive inspection and what I found

It has been a few weeks of partial spring and although I've been peeking in a few times I wanted to check on them to seem how they were doing since we've had a few days of warm (almost 70's) and some cooler nights (lower 30's).  I've heard that most hives can starve this time of the year because the queen starts laying, which equals more bees that need to feed - and although they might be bringing in more pollen - there's a tendency to 'burn through' their honey reserves and get in trouble.  I had a friend over yesterday and it's always a good idea whenever you have a fellow 'beek' around to go through your hives together and see/compare what's going on - so here' what I found ..

H1 -
This is the single deep that got a new queen last fall and has overwintered well and she's been laying pretty well so far with approx 2 frames of brood and I've also been feeding it some Megabee a few times to get them built back up.  Whenever I was in there about a weeks ago there was new brood about to about to hatch, more laid in various stages and still about 2 frames of capped honey.  Whenever I went into them yesterday I found a busy hive with lots of pollen, and more brood laid - but no nector or capped honey.  A problem.  I was able to steal 3 frames of capped honey from the other hives and provide them some 'stores' for awhile.  I'll check it in about 4 days to see how they are doing.  They seem to be making some drone brood, but not excessively and the queen has about 4 frames to lay in now and some really good brood patterns so far.

H2 -
This is the hive that had 2 4-frame nucs sitting on top.  3 or 4 days ago I've moved/split up some of the brood from the right side to the left side to give them more room 'up top' and as I've been seeing brood in the lower left hand side.  I'd been finding drone brood being made between the top boxes and below and thing that even though the space was 'normal' for double frames, it might have been the 'only' space they to lay it.  I decided to break it down more to see what was going on, and am glad I did.  What I found was almost 6 frames of capped honey still down below and not much room for the queen to keep laying.  As this time is the year that you are supposed to 'reverse' the hive boxes if you have 'doubles', I decided to rearrange it.  I took both 4-frame boxes off, rearranged the bottom box with most of the brood, added some empty frames to the bottom box, replaced the double 4-frame boxes with another brood box and moved the honey stores, some brood and empty frames up top.  The queen should have about 7 frames to lay in now between both boxes so she should be happy for a bit.  This is a good honey packing hive and really nice brood pattern so far.  Queen seen and is looking healthy.

H3 - the angry hive..
This is the hive I'd added 4 frames of various stages of drawn comb into last week.  They have started to work on this and drawn down and out some of those frames.  I found 5 frames of honey in the bottom box and some good brood patterns in here also.  I decided to rearrange this hive also by adding a couple more frames to the top box and moving the capped honey up and to the outside of the hive.  In each of the hives whenever I rearranged them I left pollen and honey beside the brood frames so they wouldn't have to far to go for food.  The hive wasn't too 'mad' yesterday which was good.

All in all a good hive visit, and manipulation.  I need to leave them alone for about a week to give them time to adjust and keep going.  It's still about 2 weeks out on our necter flow yet as best I can tell, and about 2 weeks before the other 'package' I order comes in so that should just about 'time it out' well.  The forcythia in the yard should start blooming within the next week or so as well as the cherry tree we have by the house.  Maples are blooming as well as American Elm so they have some pollen coming in.  As soon as the the cherry tree looks like it's going to 'pop' - I'm going to make a split off of H2, and possibly H1. We are expecting to have 3 more days of clear weather and mid 70's this week, then rain mid week and cooling off to the mid 50's but the low's are still above freezing.  I'll need to do a quick check on H1 by the weekend to be sure they are still 'good' with honey stores and might have to add some sugar water to them but the other hive should be good with 4+ frames of capped honey on them still.  I also only killed 2 SHB yesterday so they are still around, but not 'bad' yet.

More later ..

Feb 27, 2014

I've been into the hive a few times and am pleased so far with their progress in rebounding from the winter, and getting ready for spring.  I took a few pictures of each of the hives including their frame status and queens for reference, but as most of them were busy - I'll keep those for myself at this time.

For the last couple of weeks I've noticed the girls bringing in lots of pollen,  about 30-40 % of the time whenever there was good flying weather.  I've identified a couple of American Elm trees on my property and the girls have really been enjoying it. 

Last week I did a 'full' inspection and here's what I found.

H1 -

New queen from last fall.  2+ frames of mixed capped/new brood and 4+ frames of capped honey.  This is the hive I'd given a strip of pollen patty too and they responded very well with it.  I added another strip of pollen patty to it a couple of days ago and will check on it's status, weather permitting this weekend.

H2 - T

his is the hive that died due to not enough bees to keep warm.  It's ready for the Nuc I should receive in about 3 weeks.

H3 -

This hive has 2 double 4-frame nucs on it.  A few weeks ago I'd noticed the queen starting to lay in the top of 1 side and only a few bees moving around the other side.  I didn't check the bottom box other than to move 1 side and peak down.  It had almost 3 frames of capped honey on that side, so I presume its the same on the other.  Last week I did a full inspection and saw capped brood in the lower 'main brood box' and almost 3 frames of mixed brood in the same upper 4-frame box as the previous week.  I also noticed a lot of bees in the other 4-frame nuc box and believe the queen has migrated over there and started laying.  From my estimate, I've probably gotten about 5 frames of brood laid by this queen so far, and she seems to be doing well.  I have this box configured in this manner in hopes of making 2 more nuc/hives from this setup in a few weeks whenever the pollen starts coming in strong, and our nector flow starts.  I'm going to let them raise their own queens from this stock and they should be able to build up good for the summer and into the winter.

H4 -

Angry hive.  A week or so whenever I entered it I noticed that almost all the tops of the frames were covered with bees and there was about 30 or so bees on top of the Inner Cover.  Last week I counted 4+ frames of capped honey and several frames of mixed brood/pollen so this hive is doing really well so far.  I broke the #2 top frame off while trying to pry it off due to it's being "glued' down really well - so I just pushed it back down and left the frame as it was.  I'll deal with it later.  I peeked into it the other day and notice about 150 or so been up on top of the Inner cover and all the frames are now covered with bees so I decided to add another brood box, but only gave it 4 frames - and of those 4 frames only 1 is a 'full' frame in depth.  The other frames had partial natural comb drawn already and I wanted the hive to continue building them out.  Once they completely draw those down and need more frames, I'll add more frames until I eventually get a full deep box.  I also had a nugget left over from my pollen strip and give it to them to see what they would do.  It didn't take more than about 15 seconds for that to be covered in bees and started to be consumed.

So far I have 3 hives that seem to be going pretty well, considering it's the last of February and I'm pleased about this.  At this time it appears that I might be able to create 1 to 2 nuc's from H3 and I'll probably create another from H4.  I have a package coming in about 3 weeks and hopefully it will do well as I already have some drawn comb for them to get started in.  I also have a VSH Nuc which should be ready for mid-May pickup from NC.  I'm excited about getting these genetics and possibly making a few hives from it.  I also like the idea of possibly creating/re-queening these genetics into my other stock - but need to 'watch' them to see how they do this year.  I'll probably try to create another Nuc from it that way I have 2 VSH genetic hives to compare/contrast to.

This Saturday is the annual Spring Bee conference here in town so I'll be busy with this day.  There are going to be several talks on queen rearing and survivability so that should be exiting to hear. 

Maybe I'll see someone there that I know, that follows this blog ...

Feb 2, 2014 update

Yesterday was a good day to get into the hives and see what was going on since the temp was around 65 degrees and I haven't actually been 'down' into the frames since shutting them up last winter.  So, here's what I wanted to do, and found ..

H1 - the single deep that I was concerned about for several reasons, but mostly because I wasn't seeing as much activity as the other hives during 'good flying' days.  This is also the hive that I'd placed a pollen patty into last Sunday and not replaced the syrup in the top gallon feeder .  It had 3 to 4 frames of bees, some brood and looked pretty healthy considering what I was afraid of.  I had another hive beside it that I lost last week and was concerned about this one also.  Whenever I removed the top, the bees had consumed approx 90 % of the pollen substitute I'd put in there last week and I had 3+ frames of almost fully capped honey stores.  I won't need to feed this hive any more - thankfully.  Here's some pictures of the pollen substitute, or what's left of it -

this was approx 2" wide and 11" long originally

Hmm - the middle must have tasted better then the ends ..

A close up of the buffet..

 I ended up moving what was left over, and giving them another patty to encourage them to continue building up. 

H2 -
This the single deep, with the 2 4-frame nucs sitting on top.  It has had, until yesterday, a top feeder on it.  They'd stopped taking sugar water and I hadn't really 'fed' them in a couple of weeks.  I also noticed some brood, and 3-4 frames of capped honey in it.  I didn't go down into the bottom box (wish I'd had time) but the bees were occupying both "top" 4-frame nuc boxes so I was encouraged about their capacity at this time.  I removed the top feeder, and replaced with an inner cover and regular top cover.

H3 - the mean bee hive ..

This hive is a single deep hive and was, until recently taking allot of sugar water.  I removed the top feeder and put the remainder out in the yard for everyone else to eat off of.  I noticed 4+ frames of capped honey - so they need to eat some more of their stores so the queen has room to lay.  I also noticed the queen yesterday, she looked kind of 'thin' as compared to previous viewings and don't know if this is normal during an over winter process, or not.  I did though see her dropping a egg into one of the cells.  Of course the bees weren't too happy with me removing their 'roof' and I actually got stung 3 times.  If they decide to supersede her this year, that would be fine with me.  This is actually an offspring of the 'original' queen from the Nuc I got bought last year, and has always been a 'mean' hive for some reason.  If they don't supersede her and they continue to be more hostile, then I might have to re-queen this hive this summer some time.

I also noticed a good bit of flight activity from all 3 hives yesterday and also allot of bees coming back with pollen.  I don't know what's blooming right now, but as long as they do - that's all that matters at this time.

Got our monthly bee club meeting tomorrow, and I'll get the timeline for the other 'package' I ordered, and also get a chance to talk to Danny and determine when I can get my other 3 hives back - from where he over-wintered the queens for me.

Snow time in the apiary..

We were expecting anywhere from 3 to 6" of snow last night, which is not only rare for us - but also this early in the year.  We usually don't have more than a dusting of snow but typically do get some ice - usually towards the end of February, so this surprise was really nice.  We ended up with just over 2" of snow, on top of about 1/2" of ice.  I spend the day working from home, which was nice also and got a chance to wonder over and see what was going on.

Here's what I found ..

The top picture with the double hives and glass gallon feeders on top only has the hive on the left with bees in it as I'd lost the other hive due to, what I believe was "leakage" from the feeder on top.  This is the hive that I added a single Megabee patty strip (actually is the length of the hive, but covers 2 frames nicely) to last Sunday while the weather permitted access.

The middle picture has the double-nuc box and is doing fine so far.

The last picture has 2 hives, but only has bees in the hive on the right.  The hive on the left is another deep that I removed and 'concentrated' the bees into 1 deep/brood box for the winter.  This is also the angry box.

I cleared the entrances that were covered with snow, not that I think they need access to the access, that the CO2 levels would get to high .. but I really just wanted to, and knew that if started scraping/knocking on their front door - I'd know if they were alive.  Needless to say, they all answered back quickly.  :)

Anyway, it's going to be 13 tonight and about 19 tomorrow night and with the weather still in the lower 40's during the day till this weekend, I know they'll stay hunkered down.  I know I would if I lived in a box like this during this weather.  The 10 day forecast calls for 65 on Sunday then followed by mid 50's as highs after that.

Hope everyone else's hives are surviving and doing well ...

Jan 25, 2014

Other than the fact that this is my first winter-over, being a new bee keeper or just am tired of the cold weather, but I'm getting anxious about the weather and whether I'll be able to get all my hives back up and running in 'full' swing this year so I can experience a "typical" (lol) year of beekeeping.  We've had some pleasant weather over the weekend and it gave me a chance to check on one if my hives that I haven't seem much activity on and have been worried that there were issues in it.  I've been top-hive feeding as much as they wanted over the winter, only 2 gallons taken so far, but as I lost a hive I believe from cold water drip - I was anxious to get into the hive and see a little.

The top gallon feeder was empty and it was a good time to visit the hive yesterday.  I didn't plan on doing a full inspection as the weather was only about 52 and windy, but wanted to remove the top and check on the cluster.  Whenever I removed the top and looked in I had a "2 to 3 frame" cluster which both surprised and elated me.  The other hives have always had more 'flight' activity and this was still the case yesterday. 

I decided since I'd received my shipment of Megabee power the other day that I'd make up a 1/2 batch as I wanted to keep the strips I plan on putting in them, thin to try and allow the bees to fully cover the strips and hopefully prevent a massive build up of SHB.  Although I'd read how to make up the mixture, nobody ever mentioned it's "unique" smell while still in it's liquid form.  By making up a 1/2 receipt, I was able to pour 2 (approx) 11x14 containers while keeping the thickness to about 1/4 or a little thicker. 

I'd put some of the 'scraps and scrapings' on the front of the 3 hives and 2 of the hives had devoured it within a couple of hours.  Since I'd cut a couple of strips already (mostly so that I could wrap and store them effiently in the fridge) I decided to put one on the hive that I'd inspected earlier.  By the calendar date, I'd intended to start encouraging them to build up their numbers around the middle of next month - but like I said earlier, I'm anxious to get things going.  I guess they were angrier than I thought as I actually got stung once.  Oh well, such is the life of a beekeep.  I needed a winter vaccination anyway.   HA HA

I'll monitor this hive and update back as to how well they consume and build up from this initial feeding.  The weather today is supposed to be around 62 today - down to 27 tonight, followed by low 40's for a few days and not back into the (possible) lower 60's for a week.  I didn't give them any sugar water back, just the "patty" so by leaving them alone for a week, I should get a good idea of how well they like - and are taking it.

Anyway, more later ...

Mid January update

I've been providing sugar water to the bees all winter for 2 reasons:  One is that I knew there wasn't a lot of stored supplies for the winter, and two is that if they wanted it - they'd have it.  I haven't used too much sugar water ( not quite 50# for 4 hives so far) and I think it's worked out fine so far.  I've been noticing, during warmer days, activity from all the hives with 2 hives having more "flight" activity which I believe is probably normal as I had 2 hives that had a lot more bees in them then the other 2.

I've had 2 hives with 1-gallon feeders on top, and 2 with the common 'box top' feeders.  One of the box tops needs to be fixed as I've noticed that some of the bees have managed to get under the screening, and gotten trapped - and died.  I'll fix this feeder once the weather get's a little warmer, and I can remove it - but till then, I just don't put any sugar water on that side.  I've thought about something else too - maybe I can just open it up more - and put dry feed, like pollen substitute on that side if I use it again next year.

One of the 1-gallon feeders needed to be refilled a couple of days ago and since it was warm, I decided to have a little inspection especially since I didn't see any bee activity out front.  Whenever I removed the glass bottle and looked in, there wasn't any activity on the cluster so I pulled the top.  All the bees had died - what a sad day.  I inspected the cluster and hive and can only determine that even though the bottle was 'sealed' well with propulus, it must have leaked over the last couple of days with the extreme cold weather,  the cold water/sugar must have dropped onto the cluster/brood and killed the bees.  There was still some capped honey and stored sugar water so I know they had food.  I've taken the top off, and the frames out and made them available for the other hives to forage off of.

It's a sad day whenever you loose a hive, and it's my fault.  I didn't really like the idea of having to feed all winter, but thought all the hives were 'surviving' well considering all the splits I'd done last summer.  I've ordered some MegaBee to try and boost the hives with for the spring build up and plan to feed it, mainly externally.  Using it externally should, whenever the bees can fly, provide some extra pollen for all the hives - prevent SHB build up ( I hope ), and also help with the spring build up.  I was reading in the Farmers Almanac last night that this year is supposed to be another 'wet' spring, and 'dry' summer starting in June.  As I made several splits last year, this year will be about getting the hives stabilized, maintain their strengths, draw out the honey supers, and if possible create another split or 2.

I talked with Danny, who I've had 'banking' 3 of my queens last fall for me and he said that 2 of the 3 hives have been doing well so this brings my apiary count to 6 now.  I've ordered a package and should get it the first week of March.  I've also been in contact with a breeder from NC who will have some VSH queens and nuc's available - but not till mid-May.  I'm unsure if this will be 'too late' as our typical pollen season is about to wrap up by then, but we'll see how the year goes.  I'd like to get a Nuc from her, and/or possibly a couple of queens earlier depending on how my hives do this year.

The queens that Danny is keeping were born last year, and 2 of the hives I have at home are also new.  One of the hives is still the queen from the Nuc that did so well last year.  I'm hoping that every year, if or whenever I need - to replace the queens with VSH queens so that I can prevent any issues down the road, and start introducing some better genetics into my apiary.  That's the plan anyway, and we'll see how it goes.  If I can replace and keep up with any splits or queen needs that I might have - then trying to provide from 'known' good stock would be nice.

Getting ready for fall. Hive changes, and new queens ..

Ok - so I'm slack. 

It's been a few weeks since I posted any updates, so here goes - and hopefully in chronological order ..

As you're aware, I've moved all 4 hives into their newest and sunniest locations about a month ago.  So far, 3 of the 4 hives have been doing well with a reduced number of SHB in them.  I still have 1 hive, H2 which has allot (or more than I want to have anyway) of SHB in it - but as it has the most resources (capped honey and bees) they bees seem to be taking care of them - or at least keeping them under control.  I wish I didn't have to still kill about 25 or so upon each visit, not including the traps that I'm still getting them in - but as it was the last hive to move, perhaps that's it's 'fate' for now.

9/5 - Even though I've been community and top-hive feeding, only 1 hive ( H2 ) has been really putting on the weight.  I noticed this on a full hive inspection on all the hives and decided to make a few changes.  I took some brood from H2, and gave it to the new split-hive I created this year.  I also took some capped honey and gave it to the Nuc box, and H1 because the bees in the Split and Nuc boxes were the lowest in bee counts and needed to build up their 'stock' some.  I also broke down the Nuc box and H2 from double-deep boxes to just 1 Deep.  I also noticed that the queens in the Split, Nuc, and H1 boxes weren't laying too much - and what they were was somewhat spotty.  This might have been due to the Mite treatments I've been using, Api-Var Life - but as the packaging doesn't state it should...who know's for sure. 

9-6 - I decided after talking to several people and making arrangements to have a local commercial beekeeper friend "bank" some of my queens to order some replacement queens so that hopefully I can accomplish 2 things - new queens to build up the stock for the winter, and be able to maintain/keep those queens over the winter.  Since I didn't have enough brood to make any nucs up and it's really too late in the season to start from 'fresh' this seemed to make the most sense.  The queens I decided to replace, albeight 2 of them were needed the most were - Split box from earlier this year, Nuc bomb, and H1.  I was fortunate to be able to find someone locally that had stock, and also wanted to have some of my genetics.  I searched around from some VSH queens, but couldn't find any and ordered my queens from JJ's Honey out of Georgia.  We've had several people order from him and although he's a small breeder, there haven't been any issues.

9-11 -

I don't know when the call came in as I'd gone to bed at 2am from working, but woke up around  8 and had already received a call from the post office saying that the bees were in and I could come get them.

I inspected them at the post office, and had 4 queens with several attendants with them and all seemed fine.  They were much smaller in abdominal size than my current stock, and other club members have ordered from JJ's Honey before w/o issues - and I've heard that you can't always tell much from that.  Since you asked, I had someone else need one so that's why the order was for 4, instead of 3.  I'd arranged for Danny to come by and get my queens he as going to "bank" for me so I just gave the queens a drop or 2 of water in their cages until he arrived. This was the first time Danny had come out to the house and we did a full inspection of the 3 hives in question, and a preliminary one of the one that is doing well.  He didn't really have any "better" suggestions as to why the queens weren't laying very much, but thought that perhaps re-queening might help.  The only reasoning I can assume, and really hate to do that .. :)- is that perhaps their wasn't too many bees to cover the brood, and the Api-Var Life had 'shunted' them for a bit.  All 3 queens were quite large and healthy looking - but who knows.  We captured the old queens, and put the new queens, along with their cages in w/o any issues. 
Whenever we looked at H2 - he agreed that there were plenty of SHB in there and couldn't understand why either.  I also showed him the original location where they were located and he agreed that that location shouldn't have been any problem - but since they are doing better now ..  who knows.  I think since we have allot of pines around us, that might be the reason - but just not sure.  Before he left, he jokingly asked if he could sterilize his hive tools somewhere so that he didn't take any SHB pheromones back home with him.

9/15 -

I didn't have time to get back into the hives until yesterday. 

Split box already had the queen out so I removed the cage and refilled their top feeder.  I'm using a migratory top with a 1-gallon jar on it.  This seems to be working better for them as they couldn't seem to understand the other feeder.

The Nuc box still had the queen in it, although I don't know why.  As soon as I separeted the frames and pulled it up for inspection, she ran right out and into the hive.  There was still some 'candy' in place, but as I didn't have to remove it to release her - who knows.  I cleaned out the other candy and left on their landing board as a treat.  I'm feeding them with a top feeder, from Brushy Mountain, but they don't seem to take to it very well.  I've had this issue on other hives, but hope it's due to the "number" of bees in the hive, and not that they aren't smart enough to locate their dinner.

H1 - the queen was already out so I removed the cage.   I'm having to feed a gallon just about ever other day.  This is good news as I'm wanting them to stock up for the winter and they seem to like the migratory top/1-gallon feeder much better than the top-feeder from BM.

H2 - just a status update here on it.   I'm feeding it with the same type of top feeder from BM, and they are really taking it in - almost to the fact that it's a gallon a day.  If I kept it full all the time, I think they'd drink it up but I have to weigh that against them running out of egg laying area so I need to keep an eye on them.

I don't know when the other queens were released, but don't really care as I just have to look for some new eggs and brood towards the end of this week. 

That's all for now - I'll try to update after I do another inspection towards the end of the week.

Last hive move and current status ..

I've been delaying, for not any real reasoning except for my little friends (giving the Nematodes something to eat) moving my last hive (H-3) over to they sunnier place for too long - and decided to move them last night.  Now all the hives are in the same place again, and it's much sunnier for them.  Hope they like it now where it 'hotter'.  I need to clean up the area, but here's a couple of pics ..

I knew, from a recent inspection that the IPM board might be 'stuck or propolized' to the bottom of the Deep and that whenever I moved it I'd need to pry it loose a bit.  I wanted to move just the hive boxes and not the bottom board due to my last inspection whenever I found about 150+ SHB hiding inside, and outside along the bottom board.  As such, at about 8:15 I readied my new bottom board in place, took the hive tool with me along with the wheelbarrow and proceeded to their current (now old) location to get things going.  I pried some rags in front of the front entrance, loosened the bottom board from the bottom deep box and hoisted it. 

Can you imagine what happened next - but what I hadn't thought of - till I actually was about 1/2 way to the wheel barrow?  Yep - the bottom 2 hives were securely in my arms, but the rags were stuck to the entrance of the hive - which were attached still to the bottom board...which I didn't move.  What a strange feeling knowing that you have about 30,000 bees in a couple of 75lb boxes and no bottom board.  I quickly transferred them over to their new bottom board on the wheel barrow and start on.  No issues ... :) 

I left a nuc box laying on the top of the other screened bottom board for another 30 minutes or so to collect any remaining flyers and moved them over to their new location about 9:30pm.  I'd reversed the Hive boxes about 1 1/2 weeks ago and in doing so noticed that the bees had propolized the bottom board to the bottom hive box.  That's normal, but whenever I lifted up the screened bottom board - I noticed this quickly - and decided to kill as many SHB as possible.  I didn't get all of them though, but here's what I'm facing - and this is only 1 box.  The others aren't this bad - I hope. 

I'd made some traps, out of small cd-cases about a 3 or 4 days ago and put one in the bottom of this box to see how well they would work.  I noticed, after moving that there was about 80 or so SHB that were dead in the trap.  So, at least that piece worked.  I still don't like potentially enticing the SHB into the hives and then trapping/killing them in there - but you got to do what you got to do. 



I got notification that my newer beetle-barns have arrived so I'll be placing them in the hives this weekend in anticipation of great things !!!  I've discovered a bait, which kills the beetles rather quickly but as it is in a 'gel' foundation I'm not really interested in using that process anywhere near the top of the hives or on the foundation because it is deadly to bees also.  This was one of the reasons that I ordered the beetle-barns so that I can 'control' the 'bait' better.  I still have to find another type of bait to use in the barns, but will continue to use the 'gel' solution on the bottom boards.

I need to treat for Varora Mites - so I'll be heading up for some supplies either this pm, or tomorrow am.  I've decided, after talking to several people to use the Api Var Life product this year - and not the Api Var strips - or MAQS.  The reasoning I'm using the "life" product instead of the MAQS strips is in hopes of not slowing down the brood cycle too much.  As everyone "should be aware",  both products - although are "Naturally made" and use the Thymol product (made from the Tyme plant) I want to not inhibit the brood cycle too much right now while I'm still trying to create some really strong hives to over winter with.  The MAQS are a single dosing and the Api Life product requires a 2-step process a week apart.  Who knows .. I'll just have to wait and see.  Thankfully in either case, it's only about $5 per hive to treat. 

More later, and hope everyone's life is well ...

A sad day for the Nuc. Other interesting info ..

Down to 4 hives now - 2 are double-deeps, and 2 are single-deeps.

I'd checked the Nuc along with all the other days about a weeks ago and things have bee progressing well and there was a increased activity of bees feeding from the top feeder, as well as good "flight" activity.  Whenever I went to check on them yesterday, I didn't notice too much activity on the hive and whenver I opened it up - most of the bees were dead.  There was some slight orange staining from the entrance hole and I think these bees might have suffered from Nozema and the SHB were attaching the rest of what was left.  If you remember, this was the Nuc that I'd created from one of my packages, and actually moved the queen over by accident.  I didn't see her in all the mess along the bottom of the screened board - so I hope she and a few other bees made it out.  I'd double-tapped the 4-frame nuc boxes together so that the SHB wouldn't get in - but it might have been too "tight" and there wasn't enough ventiliation for the rest of the hive - despite the bottom board being fully screened.   

On another note, I've been feeding sugar water with HBH in the 5-gallon feeder and refilled it the other day.  I've added a top (box style) to one of the hives and refilled the 1-gallon top-feeder on the other hive.

Here's the latest feeding activity ..

 

 It took the bees just over a week to empty this one, and I think it was due mostly to the poor weather, due to the rain.  We've had over 6.5 inches of rain in the last 4 days and things are really water logged.  7.21 " of rain to date for this month, and a "normal" rain fall for this month (with 10 days left in the month still) is 3.35".  The weather channel is calling for rain for the next 5 days - then about a week of no-rain ... so let's all keep out fingers crossed.

I went to a local 'health' food store yesterday and bought some Wintergreen, Lemongrass, and Spearmint Oils for some mixtures that I'm going to start using.  The Wintergreen will be using in the grease patties, and some new SHB preventative treatments.  I'll try to also reference that info on another page for anyone who's interested in following along or looking for additional link info.

I'd ordered some Beetle Barns before I heard about this trick (keeping the SHB out in the first place, mentioned above in the SHB link) but will be using the barns in the bottom of the hives also.  I'll probably, since I'm down to 2 hives now - try these 2 treatments --- and see how well it works. 

Hives 1 and 3 - paper towles/coasters (look down for the Feb 9, 2010 post)
Hives 2 and 4 - beetle barns. 

Will update everyone as things change ... hopefully for the better quickly ..

ps - got to make time to visit Mr. Crocker in Spartanburg and "brain-dump" from him.  He's been keeping bees for about 60 years now, and still has 25+ hives doing really well ..

Hive inspections - 8-11-13

Well, I was able to get into the hives yesterday to check on their SHB status and honey stock as I haven't had a chance in about a week (I did a quick inspection 5 days ago) to swap out traps.  Here's what I found ..

H-1

Changed 2 traps and some brood but not much - also really light on capped honey.  There was some uncapped supplies.  A little low on bees, but they are keeping the SHB in check for now.

H-2 (Nuc Bomb)

It's still got 2 deeps on it and I swapped out 3 traps in it.  I noticed a drawn-out queen cell which looks almost ready to 'pop' in the top super.  It was located on about the 4th or 5th frame and was a hive-drawn frame which was about 70% drawn out.  I left it alone because the hive didn't have allot of bees in it and I hope they don't swarm.  I think the bees have created this because there is a problem with the existing queen - and she'll soon be superceeded by a new one.  There was only 2 or 3 frames of brood, and the frames were only spotty in brood - so we'll see.  Not much capped honey, but some uncapped.  Some bees might have drifted back to H-3 whenever I moved it last week - but their count seems good, and they are acclimating well to their new location.

H-3

Allot of SHB still - and swapped out 4 traps.  This hive has 2 deep hive boxes on it also had more brood and honey in the top - but not much in the bottom.  I decided to swap the boxes around.  In  moving them around, I noticed about 100 or so SHB trapped on the bottom of the screened board.  I spent about 15 minutes trying to kill all of them, in addition to all of the others that were on this hive.  No SHB larva found - just a over abundance of SHB.  Bee count is enough that they are keeping the SHB at bay - but I still thing there's a problem if I loose too many bees - I might end up loosing this hive.  Here's what the traps are looking like.  I'm removing 3 to 4 traps every 3 to 4 days from the hives and they consistently look like this...when's it going to end ???

H - 4

Still a single hive and a couple of frames of brood.  Light on capped honey, but some and some uncapped stores.  Swapped 2 traps.

Nuc Box -

Swapped 2 traps, and capped honey was in the bottom box.  Not much of anything in the top, and no brood up there.

So - even though I'd hoped I'd started to see some "light" by the reduction of traps - I don't know that I've made much headway.

Definitely - time to feed again though.  I refilled the quart jar on the Nuc box and H-1 - and also put out 5 gallons of sugar water for everybody..with the HBH in it.  I expect they will "drink" this all down by Wednesday or Thursday.  I'll keep refilling for a few weeks and see how they are doing. 

7-26 update

Wow - has it been this long since I've posted anything ???

I've been busy, like all others and haven't updated my Apiary notes lately so here we go ..

I've been really struggling with the SHB.  Their are the bain of existence and wish all of them a really horrible death.  Whew - that felt better.  :)

They have been wreaking havoc in my hives lately even though I seemed to have strong hives.  So far this year, they have decimated 2 nucs, and wiped out 2 of the 3 deeps out of my Nuc bomb hive.  The nuc's suffered, I believe, even though I had plenty of nurse bees whenever I created them, from the robbing I couldn't stop in time - and there fore they were quickly over run and I had to just 'dump' what bees I could save, back into other hives, and 'trash' those nucs.  I really don't know why I suffered such a loss on the 3-deep Nuc bomb other than their being more SHB than I knew were there whenever I tried to split it.  The process went like this .. Thursday I slid a choke board between box 1 and 2/3, to temporarly split the hive and created some queen grafts.  I noticed 2 days later whenever I went to check on the grafts that there were some dead bees out front on the landing board of the 'new' upper hive but just thought that this might be normal because of the split, and them trying to stave off robbing and etc.  I went back to check on the hive about 3 days later and noticed not only a lot more bees on the same landing board, but also what looked like some larva.  I slid my hive tool down the metal separator to 'draw out' what was there and noticed SHB larva - which really freaked me out.  As I carefully slid out the metal seperater more (but not too much) I quickly determined there was a problem and promply took the top 2 boxes off.  What a mess !!!!  Not only was the top 2 hives severely infested with SHB, 1/2 of the hive was lost - but the larva was everywhere and now I potentially have lost my great Nuc bomb, as well as potentially killed that hive.  I rinsed and killed as much larva as possible, giving the nearby ant piles a great treat and left the hives out to 'air dry' for about a week.  As expected the other bees welcomed the opportunity to retrieve all that necter and honey left over.

I've sense started an aggressive plan to kill as many as possible, through almost any means possible.  I keeping a closer eye on any larva in all the hives, and removing any frames with larva on them.  I've also started using the Beetle traps with mineral oil in them and have found not only striking results, but possibly a little hope.  In the last week I've had 1 to 3 traps in each hive and have had to replace them every 3 to 4 days (per hive) because they are full.

I'd guess that there are at least  to 70 SHB per trap.  I know that this only kills the "adults" but if I can potentially reduce their numbers, I can slow that process down.  I've also removed the top bars from the hives to reduce their abilities to 'hide' from the bees and have ordered some Nematodes to put into the ground.  The Nematodes are reported to be voracious microscopic eaters and hope they are fruitful and multiply.  Go Nematodes - Go !!!

I'm still feeding them and keeping an eye out that they won't get "honey bound" and so far this hasn't been an issue.  With it being almost the end of July now, I'm just on a maintenance plan for now to build them up for the winter.  I'll have to try and do some more splits in the spring, and work on moving the existing 3 hives I have into a sunnier place for the rest of the summer - and winter.  Thankfully, I've already cleared an small area that I can put them.  I'll be working on a larger area over the rest of the summer and winter so hopefully I can have some more hives next year.

that's all for now .. but here's a quick video of their feeding frenzy from the other day .
Although it's in the same spot it's been, it only took them about 10 minutes to find it again.  The 4 1/2 hives seem to consume a 5 gallon feeder in about a week.

Enjoy..

Tuesday and Thursday ..

The first Tuesday of the month is the local bee keepers meeting and I wanted to try and get into the hives to check their trap status' before the meeting and quickly look for anything else that I might need to talk about before the meeting. 

I quickly rushed home after work and even though I was 'starving' dived into the hives to check out what was going on.  I only had to replace 4 traps this week as I found that most of the traps only had about 10 to 20 SHB in them.  This was an encouraging note, but I don't believe I've solved the issue I'm having - just possibly started to see a decline - at least for now.  Heck .... I'll take any improvement I can get. 

Hive status -

H2 - Nuc bomb -

I noticed allot of the male (smaller and brown in color) inside the top cover and in any of the other hives.  Strange, but maybe the word had gotten out that there was a 'batchler party' in this hive .... :)  I killed about 40 or so beetles (85% were males) in this hive whenever I took the cover off.  I've learned to quickly remove the cover and be prepared to kill with my fingers, instead of the hive tool - partially because of the satisfaction I get from it - and the other reasoning is that I'm faster getting them this way before they scurry off to some place other.  It's still being maintained in 2 deep boxes and although I didn't have time to go into the bottom deep, I did notice 3-4 new brood frames and am encouraged by this fact.  I'll have to check the bottom box real good this weekend to see what's going on down there.

H3 -

I noticed several new frames of brood and think the queen is still producing well in here - so far.  This is the hive that I swapped a frame of brood from H-1 about 40 days after getting the new package this year.  More about this hive below..

H1 -

This is the hive that I moved over to the new location.  I had removed the 'cover' from the front a couple of days after moving it and it seems to be doing fine in this location.  No significant change in SHB that I could tell, but no drastic reduction either.  There was some more brood here also, but not much.

H4 - The new (split) hive

This hive is one I created from a split off of H1, and is in the same (sunnier) location where H1 is now.  If I remember correctly, there is only about 7 frames in here and it's still growing slowly.  I might have to reduce its box but not sure yet.  I've been feeding it with quarts every 3 days or so, but switched to a gallon feeder.  I refilled the feeder as it had been a day or so already empty and will try to monitor it's hive-growth rate to make sure they are drawing more frames and not just filling them honey.

Nuc box -

I didn't have time to go into it and will do that this weekend.  I did "add to" the quart top feeder as they had only taken about 3/4 of it.  I don't know why they've slowed down but will investigate this weekend to see what's actually going on.

Wednesday - 8/7 - H-3 Move

I decided to move H-3 over to the sunnier place to see how it would do.  I did the same process, with partially blocking the entrance to force their re-orientation process, reducing their entrance -  and they seem to be doing well - as of last night.  I'll remove more of their 'coverage' tonight and leave their entrance restricted for another day or so depending on how they're doing.

I'll post more after the weekend whenever I know more.  Other than that, I've started clearing a larger area close to the original hive locations and have made some headway.  I've already hauled 1 trailer of trash to the dump, and almost filled another trailer.  I'll hopefully be hauling the partially filled off this weekend, and get another filled.  I think I have probably another 5 to 6 before I finish clearing what I want to at this time.  Hopefully I can get this quickly done and get the saw tooth trees I've purchased in the ground for this fall.  I also want to add some more fruit trees also - and .....

SHB trapping, moves and some new little friends..

As you know I've been trying to keep up with the SHB plague I've been experiencing.  So far, on a pretty regular pattern (4 to 5 days) I've been replacing the traps in my hives.  I've been doing this because they are almost full.  Here's the count, so far ..

H1 - I moved it the other day to a sunnier place.  I have 2 traps in it, and it is a single deep hive box at this time.  It is location in it's new location, close to H4.  Whenever I moved it, I placed some branches in front to cause the bees to re-orient, and have noticed them doing this over the last couple of days so I'll probably remove some more branches and let them settle in.

I'm also going to reduce the entrance some, probably to about 3 inches or so just to keep them 'current' with their new location.  I didn't see any clustering at the old location, by where H2 and Nuc-bomb was - so if any returned there, they either found their way back - or drifted to the other boxes.

H2 - It is a double-deep brood box and I have 3 traps in it.

H3 (the nuc bomb box) has suffered quite a reduction from 3 deeps, down to 2 deep due to the massive infestation I had in it.  It currently has 4 traps in it.

H4 - new split hive.  This hive was created from H1 bee stock.  It has been slow to start, but seems to be coming along.  I've been feeding it reguraly, and now have a gallon feeder with sugar water on it and that has delayed the need for me to replace the quart-feeder every few days.  It has had the 1-gallon feeder on it for about a week now, and there's about 2" of feed left in it.  I'll have to check it this weekend and be sure that they don't become honey-bound.

Nuc box - this is a double-stacked 4-frame box.  It has been fed continuously for about 3 weeks now and shows some progress in production.  As you might remember, this NUC is from H1 also, and I accidently moved the marked queen over whenever I supplimented some brood stock.  It has 1 trap in it.

I received my Nematodes a couple of days ago and just got a chance to put them in last night.  After you mix, and 'dissolve' the solution up into a 5-gallon bucket you can't really see anything.  I mixed/stirred up the solution every time I put some out 'liquid' out - so we'll see how well things go.  The directions say to apply to a 'wet' ground or water in after so I did this, with another 5-gallons of water, and we also got some good rain so that should help.  I believe the instructions say that you should expect some results, (how do i really measure this anyway) starting within a week and going forward.  The solution was split between both locations of my apiary. 

Depending on how well the move works, I'll start moving the other hives and Nuc over to their new locations over the next several weeks.  This weekend I'll be replacing some more traps and need to go through all the hives well to check on their brood status and also since I've been feeding for several weeks - check their honey stocks to be sure they aren't causing any queen-laying issues.

more later ..

Tuesday update...

I decided to try my hand at doing some grafting today.  Thank goodness I was able to have a friend come over and show me how to do it.  Trying to get the grafting tool to work well - was a real challenge.  I think I've tried, now we'll see what happens.  It all started like this ...

About 30 minutes before I expected Scott over I put in a cloake board to try and split the hive.  I'd decided that I wanted to make some queens from my big Nuc Bomb box before the year ended.  I have 3 pretty full deep boxes stacked together in this box, so I just lifted up the top 2 boxes, smoked them - and put in the cloake board.  I know the queen wasn't in the very top box, but not sure if she was in the middle one.  The entrance is now facing backwards, so I'll have to watch myself whenever I'm behind all the hives now.  I also put in a divider in between hive 2, thinking that I might graft from it also - but didn't.  I noticed that I had a lot of SHB in Hive 2, so Scott has some disposable traps and I put a couple in there.

 Anyway, by the time Scott had gotten over here I'd already found a nice frame with plenty of eggs in it (from the top box on the Nuc bomb) and we proceeded to graft some.  We grafted about 20 eggs, so hopefully I'll get 6 to 8 out of this and then maybe be able to get another nuc box for the winter.  I put the single, double-stacked frame with the grafted eggs back in the top box.  This box has 2 deep's with a cloake board between the bottom board.  The cloake board is 'shut' but I don't know if the queen is in the middle box or not - so we'll see what, or how they do with the grafted queen cups.

We determined that in Hive 1 where I'd taken the last split (see previous posting) that there were about 10 queen cells between several frames across the 2 different 4-frame nuc boxes on top.  Not thinking, or remembering what I'd done in the past - I decided to make a split from this with 1 frame containing about 8 queen cells, some pollen and honey frames.  We shrank this hive down to a single deep box and I'll check it in a few days to see how the queen cells are doing.  It has a good number of bees in it so it should be ok.  Another split made.

We decided to look over 2 new hives I'd made and found something interesting.  One the split I put into a 'normal' 10-frame deep box, we found a lot of eggs and a really healthy queen.  I'd seen her before, but need to keep the feed on them so they keep drawing out and creating lots of egg laying room for her.  There are about 4 frames she can lay in now, so I should be ok without checking on here in about a week.

In the 4-frame nuc, I make last Friday and added another frame into (see previous posting) we noticed the queen.  Apparently I'd missed the queen from Hive 1 whenever I made that last move so she's already taken out all the other queen cells and is 'the queen' now.  It was funny as I was showing Scott the frame with, what I thought had all the queen cells on it, to have a marked queen on that frame.  I've been lucky so far in making nuc's and hives, but this is a first to have made a 'marked' queen.  Guess not many people can say that, huh ???

I've also refilled the 5-gallon feeder and they are working on it pretty good.  I'm going to keep this up for awhile for at least a couple of reasons -

   1. It's helping the hive's I've split load up for the winter, and
   2. It's helping to keep any hive-robbing down.

more later ...

Another split ..

As I was encouraged about the previous split, I decided to make another one on Friday (6/28).  I decided this time to try and create one with/from my Nuc bomb.  All was going well on  Monday whenever checked them and they had taken the 3 queen cells as started creating some queens.  Even though I put a (almost) whole frame of honey in with them, I was still feeding - but this time with only sugar water.  I wanted them to keep they 'energy' level up.  I took 3 frames along with 2 other shakes and created the nuc.

On Monday, things were going well whenever I checked on them.  I noticed that for some reason, I was starting to get some more robbing going on - so I shut them up during the day, and opened them up at night.  I checked on them yesterday and decided to move them over to another location, and change out the solid bottom board with a full-screened one.  Remember, this nuc now has a top entrance, and not the bottom.  My experiment to see how they will 'take' to this. 

Whenever I moved them and changed out the bottom, I noticed about 100 dead bees in there from all the (robbing) fighting I presume but they still seemed to have enough bees to cover the brood.  I decided to swap a frame out, and take 4 shakes over just to be on the 'safe' side.  Talk about something fun ... everyone need to experience this type of fun with about 500 bees flying around trying to determine what just happened.  I hate I lost all those bees, but have increased the numbers up so they should be ok.  I don't have the opening closed at this time and haven't noticed any robber bees so I think I might have this under control.  The previous location is still experiencing allot of activity where the nuc was, as I left a dummy/blank nuc there just to aggravate them.

Anyway, I'll update back in a few days whenever I get back into them and see what's going on.  At this time, there are 3 queen cells and they have already started to fillagreed them - so hopefully in a week, I'll have another colony.   :)