Spring has given way to hot, hot summer. The near drought of May and early June finally shifted back towards the more seasonal hot afternoons and lukewarm showers. Just enough to steam the pavements and keep the humidity high. Overall, we're down about 10 inches for the year. The lake is partially dried up. I've vented all the hives to help with heat and humidity. Two of the three have screen bottoms, but the North hive continues to have small hive beetles (SHB) here and there despite efforts to move it to full sun.
The South and East hives are in full sun and don't show any sign of SHB at all. In April, the North hive had a few beetles so I added Beetle Blasters in the brood box. The hive was moderately strong, no boil but populated. Bees were calm. I added on medium honey super. When I checked it two weeks later, there were SHB in the Blaster, no new comb on super. When we got back from vacation (2.5 weeks gone) at the end of May, I decided to change the screen bottom back to the Greenbees oil tray and I took out the Blaster. Everything seemed good, reasonable build up of brood. By June 4th, the hive weighted in at 74.8 pounds. By June 18th, 40% of the frames had honey with about 40-50% of it capped. During inspections I seen a few SHB along the top bars, but not very many. The oil tray has trapped some but not nearly the number I've seen before. June 28th weight was 75.3 pounds.
The South hive and East hive are the same age, just located five miles apart. Both were started with nucs on April 16th. The South hive started at 24.3 pounds without a honey super. The first inspection on April 24 showed a good boil with comb built out on the exterior frames (1 and 2, and 8 and 9). There was a good brood pattern surrounded by capped honey. No problems were seen. I added the first super. In early May, there was strong build up, good brood pattern, while there were quite a few bees up in the super, there was no comb and of course, no honey yet.
When we returned from vacation I was anxious to see how the nucs were developing. The South hive appeared fine, but on the second day back when I went to take a closer look I noticed a large, fist-sized ball of bees on the ground. At first I thought they were gathered around something sweet or had congregated on a special mushroom, but the longer I watched the more it became evident that they were simply balled up on each other on the ground. The ball was located about 3 feet from the hive. Bees in the ball did not fly aways, but kept walking around on each other. There seemed to be quite a bit of activity around the entrance to the hive, so I marked the bee ball with a small branch and decided to wait till the weekend to inspect the hive. The next day, the ball was still there and didn't seem to be any smaller. Becoming more curious as to what these bees were doing, I searched the internet, but most queries led to "bee balls" as in swarm clusters. This was a small cluster, only the size of a fist. I kept searching. The best explanation I found is "lost bees." The explanation seems to fit. These were bees that were part of a swarm the "got lost." They were prepared to follow the swarm, but had lost track of it. They didn't feel a need to return to the hive, even though it was only 3 feet away! The May 29th inspection confirmed it. The South hive had swarmed sometime not long before. I find this peculiar as there was a super in place with excluder to provide more room. At this inspection, there was no comb on any of the new super frames. There was good brood pattern, but clearly no boil. I did not see a new queen. On June 2nd the south hive weighed in at 46.2 pounds. This hive is in full sun, and despite the swarm, there was no sign of SHB or other problems. By mid-June there was still no comb built out on the new frames in the super.I didn't feel the hive to be strong and I wasn't sure the new queen was laying. On June 28th I took a full frame of capped brood from the North hive and exchanged it for one of the South hives brood frames that were not well patterned. Still no SHB and the hive was down to 43.5 pounds.
The reason that beekeepers advise newbees to keep two hives is because each will develop in its own way, with only a little bit that we do to "keep" the bees. The East hive, which started as a nuc in mid-April at 31.4 pounds has grown strong, almost as strong on the veteran north hive. Throughout April and into early May the build up was strong, the hive was calm and quiet, but full of bees. A medium honey super was added just three weeks after the nuc was installed. On June 4th this hive weighed in at 63.6 pounds.
