I finally got to check the last of my hives after 3 weeks from all the traveling I've done and, wouldn't you know it, I take off the cover and am greeted not by the sweet odor of honey from a flow but, by a smell simmilar to rotton oranges after rotting in the Florida sun. This was my largest colony and, they had stored away 3 full mediums of honey. Now, this is all sitting as mush in the bottom of my trashcan or, just sitting out hoping the bees will rob it. I had wax moth larvae and SHB larvae covering everything. I have to say that I'm glad I went and bought plastic foundation 'cause, I would not look forward to re-wiring 30 frames. I think I got about 8 frames that didn't look too bad so, those have been sitting out near some of the hives and I'm hoping they'll rob most of it back. I guess that Understudy will soon tell me that I should have gone with SuperCell but, I just don't like all plastic. From what I can tell, they swarmed while I was gone and couldn't deffend the extra area. I guess "good ridens to bad rubish" as they say...not about the bees but, that queen was terrible. The bees could never maintain a good brood pattern for more than a week or two in spring and, only drew out 4 of the frames in the brood box. I was planning on replacing that queen anyways, but, not on losing 30,000 + in the process. Odd thing is that everything seems to enjoy eating the larvae. While I was cleaning up the frames, a blue jay landed about 7 feet from me and began pecking at the frames and a few dozen lizzards (which are ever so common here) kept comming and retreating with half of a squirming worm in their mouths. I guess I learned my lesson and try to share it with all; EXTRACT BEFORE VACATION!!!
Attempt to be optomistic:
Ah well, at least now these worms will die getting me some good fish :lol: