Today Nicholas and I spent the day in the bee yards. It was warmer today (50 degrees) and thought that it would be a good time to get into the hives. We needed to pull strips and put candy boards and mouse guards on - which should have been done weeks ago.
We didn't do a great job preparing the bees for winter. We did not get any liquid feed on and I thought that the bees would be light. This was true for some of the hives - however, I was pleasantly surprised by others. We did have a couple of hives that ended up starving.
Tom's ("nursery" location)
- 2 Nucs
- 2 Singles
- 4 Doubles
- Nucs are small
- 2 of the double are in pretty good shape
- Rest of the hives are okay
- 1 Nuc starved
Watkin's ("nursery" location)
- 1 Nuc
- 4 Singels
- 6 Doubles
- East end look really good
- West are a little weaker
Mom and Dad's
- 5 Doubles
- 2 Triples
- Every thing looks good
Baxter's
- 10 Doubles
- Every thing looks good
- 2 Dead outs
Nicholas'
- 3 Doubles
- 1 ok
- 2 really strong
Blackberry
- 12 Doubles
- All look really good I was impressed with these
Versailles
- 16 Doubles
- Look good
- left strips on since we got these on late
I was a little disappointed in our hive count. I still have a few yards to go through but I can tell that next year will be a rebuilding year.
