Hive Inspection July 9, 2011

Mark has been carrying the weight of the bee enterprise this summer. While I was in New Mexico visiting family, he called to say that he & Sarah saw one of our hives swarm at Barham's, Hive 6 had swarmed in Mayhew, and that it appeared another had swarmed at Harley's in spite of having plenty of super space. I returned home expecting to find struggling hives at Harley's.

Instead we found evidence of a laying queen in all three -- including the two splits we'd made before our trip mid-June -- and a sizeable population in the hive that had swarmed. We removed the feeders too.

Then the truck wouldn't start.  Thanks to Harley and Diana's hospitality, we didn't have to spend our time outside in the wicked heat. Mark pulled the truck out to their driveway with a tractor (I had to steer the behemoth without any power steering!), and made arrangements for repair while I sat in the air conditioned cool.

Sarah came to the rescue with the trusty Honda, which in a pinch does just fine as a bee mobile. We stopped by Barham's to observe the "tower of power" and happily discovered the cotton is beginning to bloom.

Back at home, we checked on Hive 6 to see if they had successfully requeened themselves. From the contented hum we heard when we opened the hive, we suspected all was well. But, we looked through the two deep boxes just in case. Mark saw eggs and larvae, so we closed it up and headed to the house ahead of the rain.