All's Well that Ends Well . . . We Hope

It's been an eventful few weeks since I last posted. Between illness, company, travel, work, and the death of my 96 year old grandmother, Edna, I've not been able to spend as much time on bee-related work. Oh, and we got a puppy, Duke.

The good news is that in my absence, the bees have carried on just fine. Mark has put entrance reducers on 4/6 hives. On 9/25, Sarah took notes for him:

• Took feeder off Hive 4, put on a moving screen. There isn't much wax in the medium super on top. Bees seem content. All focused on the north side.
• Had put a queen in Hive 1 but now moving it to Hive 2 because they don't seem to be laying eggs.
• I love the smell of smoke in the morning.

So, when Mark checked to see if that Georgia queen was accepted and he could take out the cork, he found freshly laid eggs and happy bees in Hive 1, meaning their attempt at requeening themselves was successful. So he moved the Georgia queen to Hive 2. Today we'll check and see if she's doing well.

Our goal is to make a plan for each hive, do an inspection of each, and get in our heads where we are for the winter. We had a cold snap but it's hot again, so we'll look at honey stores, and we may remove a super or two so they won't have unused space to keep warm. More later!