First Year Hive #1

[SignQueen]

First year....
Yesterday I went into Hive#1 started May 28th. Today they are not scrubbing. I found a BUNCH of queen cells, most of them looked oldish, they weren't there last month when we checked the hive. I did see larva in all stages (not much) but couldn't see eggs, probably cause I am blind. Not alot of brood but it is getting colder here (at night). There was a few drone cells, and I checked for mites, there were some, not many.

I know happy bees scrub, I watched them for a while today and no scrubbing. I am hoping its cause we were into the hive yesterday and not cause there wasn't a queen. I can still put my face right to the entrance and the worst I get is a few warning flybys. They are bringing in goldenrod still... I have great gentle bees  :D . The yellow jackets are nasty right now so today I put a trap out for them  :evil:

My husband and I tend to feel that they know what they are doing so leave em alone, but if they need a queen and there are no eggs that could be a problem. We did get rid of most of the queen cells but left a couple new looking ones. The queen was a SMaRt queen from Draper, don't want to lose that line.

I love my mentor but I have gotten so many differing opinions at the SWOBA meetings. I want my bees to be as organic as possible, however, I know I must treat for the mites, and prepare for winter.

The top deep is almost full of honey there are a couple of frames they didn't draw out all the way but I bet it weighs 80-100 lbs, my big muscular husband had a hard time lifting it (its polystyrene too!). There is also honey on quite a few frames in the bottom deep. I have fed them all summer 1:1 and now 2:1 with wintergreen. There is an empty super I put on top in August when they got crowded, I figured to let them draw out the wax and they did somewhat and they are full of nectar.

I am still not sure they didn't swarm and thats why the old queen cells. We last went completely through the hive on August 21st, there were no queen cells and a bit more bees.

I read this forum everyday and learned everything I know here and from bee school last March. Beekeepers are interesting and smart people, and everyone has a different opinion, sounds like my family.

Okay, so, any opinions, advice etc? Oh, and ants, they have driven me crazy all summer, any suggestions?

I will tell you what I find when I go through Hive #2 started June 27th from a large Nuc.

[Michael Bush]

Things sound pretty normal for this time of year.  If the old queen cells are brown and papery and on the bottom of the frames then they probably swarmed.  It's what they do if you don't interfere by opening up the brood nest.

[Jerrymac]

You fed them what all summer? Suger water? Probably most of your stores are sugar water. Just a guess. Perhaps they got crowded from storing all that suger and did swarm.

I have captured all my bees from some wall of a building. Fed them very little sugar, and they wouldn't hardly touch the stuff anyways, and fed back the honey I got from the walls where I got the bees.

While I have seen a few ants on the outside of the hives, not many, they are no problem. The only places they really congrigate is where I might leave some cut out combs with some honey for the bees to clean up. I think the ants do the cleaning there and the bees hardly touch the stuff. My bees don't seem to want to be fed, they want to go foraging.