First of the Year!

Been a while, but we survived the holidaze.  I hope the bees did too; the rain was pretty heavy and steady. I had harvested some honey off my strongest hive but now am wondering if I might have robbed the colony of it's precious winter stores. It hasn't been the best of foraging weather lately so I am concerned about the overall health of that colony. The colony next to it I have even greater concerns for. It seems to have had a reduction of bees in and out of the box. The last two times out in the yard the amount of bees in and out has been less and less. I opened up the box to check the hive after first noticing the lack of activity around the entrance. There were plenty of bees in the top box.

I must explain; this colony of bees was recently brought to this property in July from an old hive that had  swarmed and vacated and then was repopulated with a feral swarm afterward. It was a healthy colony with plenty of brood but the boxes were beat and the wax moth had completely decimated the bottom box and frames. I removed  the good frames and burned the rest. It was quite a chore but I enjoyed the work and was hoping to salvage enough brood to relocate them closer to my property. Of the twenty frames in the original two boxes, I ended up with 8 full frames of comb and a little honey. I put another box of empty frames once they were placed in their new yard. They seemed to be transitioning well in their new home and had moved up into the upper deep box. I was ready to put a super on top when i noticed the decline of bees.

So now, after writing this post, I've got check on the bees and find out how they're doing. I have a suspicion that I transferred some wax moth and larvae when I salvaged the original frames and they have started to wreak havoc in the bottom box. We'll find out and keep you posted on the welfare of this colony. The other 3 hives seem to be doing fine except for the chalk brood that I mentioned in an earlier post. I'll spend some time soon opening up the boxes and taking notes of the overall condition of the hives. Hopefully the weather will provide some drier conditions to work the yard and let the bees forage on whatever flowers are in bloom.

Just like I am concerned about the health and welfare of the bees in my neighbor's yard I am concerned about the bees across the state and across the globe. I recently received several e.mails all touching on the issues of pesticides being sprayed in proximity of bees and their overall harmful effects on our environment.  Primarily, it's clothianidin that is causing great concern for many recently. The fact that our government often has a role in this environmental calamity is quite sickening. From the feds to our own HDOA we are often harmed by their interventions or lack of that help to create crisis conditions all over the place.

And things may get worse before they get better. It looks like it's going to be wet again today.