I have some queens showing up soon and today I had to make things ready for their arrival.
As much as I hated to do it, it involved regicide – I had a couple queens that were either way underperforming or were making aggressive bees. I found the underperforming queen and gave her a swift and gentle death. The queen making aggressive bees is usually friendly and pops up to say “Hi” when I’m inspecting the hive. Not today she didn’t. I will have to go back in and look for her when her replacement comes.
It also involved making another split (a new colony). While I was in the hive I took several frames of brood and shook out many bees into the new colony.
I will have to feed the 2 new colonies because the forager bees will leave the NUCs and return to their original hives. Feed is simply 1:1 sugar syrup that I make by the gallon.
The weather cooperated, rain holding off just long enough for me to do what I needed.