capped drones

[Vance G]

Inspected yesterday and put on more pollen patties which the bees have been going thru fast. I didn't pull many frames in the better location with stronger bees because the wind had kicked up and the temperature dropped but while looking between frames I saw a row of capped drones half way across the top of the frame in one colony. They are just starting to show a little structure when I opened some. My queens aren't due til the first week of May. I tried splitting this early before but one year would be great and the next two not so good. I wonder if I could get queens on this short of notice anyway. If I do, what do I do with the ones already ordered?

This is a couple weeks early here. I hefted some hives and the strong ones are getting a little light and are really booming. I see pollen of three different colors coming in and a lot of it. In the more sheltered yard I pulled frames and on frames next to the brood nest, I found nice little scattered patches of freshly stored pollen and other cells of liquefied honey. Dandelions are just started blooming at 3600 feet where my house is but the bees are at 5000 and it will be a couple weeks.

[karen]

If you can find queens this early you should be able to cancel your later order with no problem. There is always a scramble for spring queens because they are limited so the queen supplier could easily resell them. So canceling in spring is usually not an issue, buyers are lined up at the door. Or offer them to people in your area or bee club.

The biggest problem is finding queens so early on short notice in the spring. If your having an early build up the queen breeders in your area are to so you may find some. Just don't cancel your order before your locked in on another.

If you can not get early queens put an extra brood box on the hives. The bees may as well start the frames that will be for the splits. Your splits will be that much more ahead when you get your queens if you can use all drawn out or partly drawn out frames. May be it will enable you to start the splits on ten frames instead of the usual five or have some extra drawn frames on hand. Bees like frames that have had bees on them better than new equipment so it's good for your splits to have the frames on a hive before hand. I usually start in the spring by putting any dead out boxes on my big hives, 1 box per hive, to be cleaned up, no sense in making the split or a new package do all that work. I also will put on frames of foundation that I plan to use for splits to get them started. My goal is to make bees over making honey so I want drawn wax so the splits are that much further along. After I have what I need for brood I will add two honey supers. I put on two so the bees have enough space to evaporate the nectar coming in and not back fill the brood area.

[Vance G]

I have a congenial commercial beek for a supplier and he readily agreed to shipping next week. Now I am torn by the decision as too early is a lot worse than too late! I already have put third brood boxes with honey and pollen frames under the real boomers. I split earlier than this with great success one year and the next two were disasters so I settled on early May. Oh well, I will wrap them up like babes and hope for the best. I just know that they will do me no good in the trees.

[Allen Dick]

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