Tale of two hives – June 1 update

We’re almost at the two month mark since the two package hives were installed (see all the Tale of Two Hives posts). I took a look at the hives yesterday and below is what I found.

Hive #1
This hive is moving right along. It has now been a little over two weeks, since I added the second brood box with ten frames containing wax foundation. These new frames are close to being all drawn out, there are only about two frames that are not drawn and a couple of more that are incompletely drawn. This hive is very close to needing a new hive body, which will be a honey super. I plan to put together ten shallow honey super frames with new wax foundation this weekend and place it on the hive next week. I think there is a good chance, if we get some rain, that I can make honey from hive #1 this summer. I always tell beekeepers in Kentucky not to expect to make honey in hives the first year package bees are installed, however I say it is possible, sometimes. The conditions required to make honey the first year with package bees are to get them installed in early April, which I did with these packages and to have a good nectar flow, which so far we have had in my part of Kentucky this spring. I might add a third requirement and that is to not encounter any problems or setbacks with the hive, this has not been the case with hive #2.

Hive #2
This hive has been my problem hive, queen problems, unfortunately which is not uncommon with package bees these days. However, the hive is now re-queened and I hope all the bees are content with this queen. Yesterday I added the second brood box to this hive, thus it is almost three weeks behind hive #1. I’m not complaining however, the hive has a full deep of bees and lots of brood. I know this is not the case for some beekeepers that had similar problems and did not catch the problem early enough. If there is not a queen in a new hive started with package bees, it will quickly decrease in population and may not contain enough bees to survive or make it economically worthwhile to install a new queen. Considering that, I’m content with hive #2.

When I installed this second hive body, I moved three frames of brood from the bottom brood box to the top brood box in the below configuration and replaced those three frames in the bottom box with frames with new foundation. This switch will encourage the movement of bees from the bottom brood box to the top box and hopefully facilitate a quicker drawing of the comb in the second hive body.

Again, while I do not expect to make honey from hive#2 this summer, I am confident the hive will be full of bees and brood, with all 20 frames of foundation drawn before the end of the nectar flow, which will likely occur here in July.  This is the goal for this hive the first year, to be as strong as any of my hives by mid to late summer, when I begin preparations to assist my hives in getting ready for next winter.