2026 Apiary

May 17, 2026:

This day was cooler and windy. The day before was beautiful and sunny and the ladies were actually lightly bearding. That was the sign it was time to add frames, but I had to wait to do it until the 17th. Since it was cold, I carefully pulled back the reflectix just enough to get to the follower boards. Each hive was given 1 drone comb with resources in it, as well as a frame that needs to be drawn out. 

Phoenix now has 9 frames and Tiye had 14 frames. Tiye also still has the queen excluder and the frame feeder, I will remove them when the weather is nice enough to take the box apart and get into there.

NOTE: Late this week, add one more frame for Phoenix to make her a full box. Also, I think it will be OK to give Tiye enough frames to fill 2 full boxes. She is about to have a huge explosion of bees. Check her capped frames at the time to make sure. Aim to have 2-3 drone frames per hive. We want her to build up numbers so we can do the Demaree method on her in about 2-3 weeks.

May 13, 2026:

The sun was out and the temps were in the high 50s/low 60s. 

The hives were very active bringing in pollen.

Phoenix had consumed all her pollen patty and they had a few frames of capped brood, as well as larva and eggs. I checked 2 frames in the center and then closed them up. I will get them a fresh pollen patty tomorrow. 

I checked on the double hive (Tiye and Melissa). First I checked Tiye and took out the two middle frames. There was lots of capped brood and some eggs and larva. They are still working on their hive alive fondant patty but had consumed all their pollen patty. I happen to see the queen, and she looked good. I put the box together and put the box aside to go into the bottom Hive (Melissa).

This hive looked good, they had lots of capped brood (about 2-3 frames) and were filing up the rest of the hive with resources. However, I did not see any eggs or larva. Since the weather was good, I checked all frames twice I saw no eggs, no larva and no queen. I closed them back up with the queen excluder still in place.

I spoke with a senior beekeeper and he believes tha the older bees that were very loyal to Toye probably killed Melissa the queen when I put the excluder on. He recommends in the future, instead of a double queen hive with an excluder, I use the double entrance screen, but have a double layer of screen so they cannot feed each other. Only use the stronger hive to heat the weak hive. Oops. Plus side, there are about 4-5 frames of bees about to be born in that hive in the next week or so, so I should definetly prepare to add frames! I think I will use the Demaree method on this hive in early June and it they produce a few queens cells, I will make a nuc split to get another hive. While it sucks a queen died, Tiye has proven herself to be very strong, and create very strong bees. If I do successfully split them, I will call that new hive Melissa, but for now, Melissa is now all absorbed into Tiye. However, I guess I can offically say Melissa made it through winter!

(SIDE NOTE: The next day I quickly added pollen patties to both these hives - 5/14/26)

I put out 2 robbing stations of all the yucky frames and my hives, as well as my neighbors hives, have been eating from them. We have had a very cool and slow start to the season, so the robbing station is helping them, I think.

Note: Next week we need to add a few frames to each hive, and in two weeks it may be time to add another whole box. Exciting!

May 5, 2026:

Overcast with intermittent sun in the early afternoon. Rain and dropped temps in the late afternoon/evening. Temps in the mid to high 40s.

The hives were very active when the sun was out. I check on Phoenix real quick and saw they were out of food, so I refilled their quart trickle feeder with syrup. I quickly checked on Tiye/Melissa to make sure they still had a pollen patty (they did) and i saw they hav been eating through their hive alive fondant patty too. They all looked good and strong, so closed them back up.

May 3, 2026:

Overcast with intermittent sun in the morning. Rain in the afternoon. Temps in the mid to high 40s.

Tite and Melissa seem to be doing well. They were very active. They definetly cleaned out a bunch of dead bees, but they were in different stages of decay, so I believe these were dirty frames in Tiye's box that Melissa started to clean for them. I am not worried. They were very calm and happy. 

Both hives were bringing in good amounts of pollen for how cold it has been.

Phoneix is doing well. I will give her another half a pollen patty and a refill on sugar syrup tomorrow. I have been ignoring her a bit but she is doing well, so I think it is good. Her bees are spunky. 

May 2, 2026:

Overcast with light wind and intermittent sun. Temps in the mid 40s to low 50s (when in the sun).

I opened Tiye real fast and found eggs and larva (very small numbers but they are trying). I decided to go ahead and combine the hives. So I removed Tiye's box and removed the screen. Melissa had eaten through her whole pollen patty, but Tiye had not, so I filled up Melissa's frame feeder, put the queen excluder on then put Tiye back ontop. At the tip of Tiye's box there is half a pollen patty and hey still have the hive alive fondant patty. They should have plenty of space and food to go for the next 2 weeks. I closed them back up and will leave them alone for the next 2 weeks. I may give them a fresh pollen patty in about 5 days. 

April 30, 2026:

Overcast with light wind and temps in the mid 40s.

I did OA treatments on the Tiye/Melissa combo, as well as on Phoenix. Phoenix did not like the OA, but oh well. Yesterday I gave Phoenix a quart of sugar syrup, she had already drunk all her pint frm Sunday. I will check again on Saturday or Sunday to see how they are doing, but everyone seemed in good spirits. They won't be flying a lot right now, it is too cold. I may give the bees some unbuilt comb this weekend, as they will be having new brood born in the next few weeks. 

April 25, 2026:

Clouds and sun. When I worked on them today, the sun came out hard and temps spiked to about 60°.

First I checked on Phoenix. She had not touched much of the sugar syrup I gave her on Saturday, which is good. She also had eggs that looked like they were a day or two old.

I decided to try and make Tiye and Melissa into a double queen hive for the next 4 weeks. The hope is that Tiye will have enough heat and bees to get another round of brood going.

I opened Melissa and gave her some extra pollen patty, as well as a frame feeder with about a gallon of sugar syrup in there. She also has one frame of partial resources that she is still working through as well. I double checked and made sure she had eggs, which she did. They were about 1-3 days old.

I them placed a screen over Melissa that is attached to shims with a small open space. Then I placed Tiye's box on top of the screen and closed them back up. I sat and watched them for a few minutes. They were both very active as the sun was out and the weather warmed up quickly. I watched them and there was definitely some drift into Melissa from Tiye, but that is ok. The hope now is over the next week, Melissa and Tiye will grow accustom to each others smell. Then next week I will remove the screen and replace it with a queen excluder, thus making it that all the bees (besides the queen) can move between the hives and help raise the brood. Then, 2 weeks after that, I will resplit them again. However, when I check on then next week, if Tiye's queen has not begun to brood I will have to remove her and combine the hive together into one super hive instead.

April 25, 2026:

Intermittent clouds and sun. Temps hovering right around 50°.

I checked on Tiye to give her a hive alive fondant patty and condense her down, as the weather was nice and sunny. I found the queen on the middle frame I pulled out, and found some brood that was probably about 20 days old, but found no eggs or larva. Tiye got condensed down to 6 frames, but she was covering about 4 of them fully. I think when I cleaned the bottom board, they got chilled and ate the brood. I am going to try to make a double queen hive using Melissa to try and give Tiye enough time and heat to brood again.

I gave Melissa and Phoenix each a pint of sugar syrup then closed everyone up.

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.