Aaron & I went to the farm today to check on bees before leaving on our scouting trip to Montana. The swarm I captured last week at the Stewardson tractor pulling grounds was gone, empty, out-of-here! (again?!?!) Their feeder was empty, which I initially thought was a good sign as I approached the hive, but when I looked inside their messages was "So long, and thanks for all the sugar". My assumption is that they didn't have a queen and possibly joined my other hive on the other side of the house in my cypress nuc.
Also, regarding the combined mating nucs in the cypress nuc, they are going strong, and I finally found the queen! I've been seeing brood, but never found her until today.
As for the rest of the apiary, Aaron's hive is doing well, but we found a supersedure cell on one of the frames. I cut it off the frame and placed it in hive #8 which still has no queen. Hive #1 has uncapped ripe honey in its honey super along with a little fresh brood up in the honey super, so I did a full inspection, rearranged the frames in the brood chamber, and added a second honey super below the filled honey super. I also threw a second deep hive on one of the hives (oops, I can't remember which one) with only 5 deep frames, which finished off my supply of deep frames.
All and all, the apiary looks pretty good: Aaron has a hive that is going well, and with the cypress nuc I have 13 hives. I'm thinking about over wintering the small hives in one box with insulation and a large candy board with a pollen patty buried in the sugar. Just a few thoughts. Aaron and I will be gone to Montana for 2 weeks, so no bee updtes for a while.
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