2026 Apiary

April 21, 2026:

I went into Melissa and Phoenix to get the queen cages out and put in the pollen patties. The queens had still not been released, but their sugar plugs were almost eaten completely through. I ended up removing the rest of the plug. While putting the pollen patty in, I saw Melissa's queen come out of her cage and join the hive. Phoenix was still in her cage even though the plug was out, so I left her cage in the top and will fish it out tomorrow. 

I then removed Tiye's boxes and cleaned her bottom board. It was disgusting. Lots of mold and dead bees. I gave it a very good clean then added back just her top box and took the bottom box off. It had a lot of dead moldy bees, but also many living bees. I put as many bees as I could back into the hive and cleaned all the dirty frames. Her numbers do seem low, but she is definitely still alive. I am still hopeful she will make it. If she had brood, it should be born soon and I should start to see more activity from her hive soon. She did seem a bit light. If the weather is good, I will get her on a trickle feeder soon.

April 18, 2026:

I received Melissa (Caucasian) and Phoenix (Carniolan) were installed. The day started out very cold and overcast, but by the time it came to install them, the sun came out and the installations worked well. I pulled the sugar plug on the queen cage and left them to do their thing. Both hives had a full frame of resources and some pollen when I installed them. I plan on putting them on a trickle feeder in about 1 week.

Tiye is still going and should hopefully have brood born in the coming week. I did see she had some drift from the new hives go into her box, so she gained maybe 100-200 new bees on installation day. Hopefully that will help her!

April 13, 2026:

Tiye has been doing lots of cleansing/orientation flights and cleaning out lots of dead bees. I checked to make sure they still had a pollen patty and sugar in their sugar box, which they are good. The weather has dipped a little the last few days, but they are still maintaining mid to high 70s in their sugar box. I am hopeful we will have fresh brood coming next week (we can only hope!). They did get their sugar box very warm a few times on the super sunny days last week, when outside temps were in the mid 40s. With any luck, they will make it into May, at which point I think we can safely say they survived winter. I am cautiously optimistic. The 2 new packages arrive on Saturday (4/18). I will be naming them Melissa and Phoenix.

April 1, 2026:

Tiye's numbers are not huge, but they are not insignificant either. She has been out almost every day doing cleansing flights and bringing the dead beens out. I also saw little or no poop in their sugar box, so I have decided to give the pollen patty to see what happens. When I gave them the pollen patty, their temps immediately jumped 10 degrees. I am hopeful they will make it, but cautiously so.

March 23, 2026:

Cleopatra died, very suddenly. When I got in there, she had lots of poop in the upper box and on the frames. I believe she was taken down by either dysentery or nosema. Very disappointing, as I was convinced they were going to make it. When they died, they crashed quickly. Within about 24 hours they were gone. I think they just could not come out to poop enough from the cold winter and it led to the dysentery in the hive, which then spread quickly. They still had lots of frames of resources and sugar, so that was not an issue.

Tiye is still alive but her numbers are small. I am starting to see her get more active and have begun to come out to do cleansing flights, but only when the sun is out and the entrance is in full sun. I will monitor for the next week.

Winter

-Cleopatra was a powerhouse. Her temps stayed stable the whole winter, with only a slight drop from October '25 to April '26. She is the perfect example or a super strong hive for winter. She went into winter with 20 frames, lots of resources and had plenty of young bees born in time to get her through the winter. Her mite count should be very low, as I treated her mid October and had a final mite count of less than 10 after her final mite treatment. She did get into her sugar box sometime around the beginning of January. I checked her sugar in mid January and mid February and there was still plenty.

-Tiye went into winter with her final mite treatment with a count of about 6 mites. She went into winter with 12 frames and was good at overwintering, though her temps fluctuate more drastically with the cold temps. Whenever we had super cold dips, mainly below 0, she would get very cold. I assume it is because that is when she began to cluster. However, she always bounced back when temps rose back up. When snow came and helped insulate the box, her temps would rise quickly. She got into her sugar box in October, but it was more to check it out. When I checked her sugar in January, she had consumed minimal amounts, so she was still eating from her internal honey reserves.

-Hattie went into winter with just barely 8 frames. I probably should have taken her as a loss, but I wanted to see if I could get her through, and she did OK. She never entered her sugar bnox and had a small count in October. However, every streak of cold weather brough greater losses of numbers, and the super cold of February did her in, which sucked. If she had been a little larger or consolidated tighter I think she could have made it. However, she built up slowly from the moment she was split and never fully got her numbers where they needed to be. I think the biggest lesson from her is that she probably never should have existed. Nefi was never strong enough to split, and I should not have forced it.