Went into my hives today

[Understudy]

Well it's winter here in South Florida. The temprature never went above 69F/17C. That's cold to me. However my bees were working it.

So I made a quick check of a couple of my hives. The queenless nuc is still going the bee count is down a little but there are five queen cells in there so I will let them go as is.

The second garden stand hive is doing great they will be ready for a split in either January or Febuary.  The First Garden stand hive is also doing great. I still need to remove some of the boxes that contain the comb from when I cut it down from the tree.

The third garden stand hive is maxed out and ready for expansion. I will hold off because temps for the next week or two are going to be a bit chilly (my version of chilly not yours).

The driveway hive is doing great. They are having a nice time and building up another box. My bees seem to like starter strips. My bees build nice straight comb.

The tool shed hive which is my original hive. They decided to let me know they were healthy by reminding me they don't like the cold either. I didn't really smoke them and the cover came off with a bit of a jolt. So my bees did what I refer to as waterfall me. Bees just poured out and expressed their displeasure with my tatics. I took 16 stings in 10 seconds. None of them bad. I just poured on the smoke replaced the cover and declared the hive healthy by proxy. Because I decided if that many bees can come pouring out at me they must be doing something right.

Lots of drones in each hive. Hives that weren't queenless or mean had great brood patterns.
Honey was coming in also. A little slow but there was lots of pollen.

So this seems to be going well. I don't think I will pull anything right now but I will adjust a few hives on the next go round. And I may feed the bees in the in the tool shed hive sugar water with Prozac.  ;)

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[pdmattox]

Sounds like a good report. I believe you should turn up a couple well earnd margaritta feeder jars for the girls. 8-)

[Cindi]

Brendhan, yea!!!!  Sounds like things are rockin' and rollin'.  It is still too weird a concept, you having this summertime (well, in my eyes) weather pretty much all year around.  I love to hear what is going on at your place.  I laughed when you told of how many stings you got, yes sir, those bees were bugged.  Best of this beautiful and great day.  Cindi