finally got to all my hives

[Keith13]

As some on here know I just returned from a year's vacation. During that time I didn't have much interaction with my hives, my father was able to stack some mediums on when they were full but that's about it. Back in the fall I did make it out there but didn't really do much my father was having a hard time with the heat so we just left it for another day. I got busy and that day didn't happen till recently. Here's what I found of my 6 hives

Hive 1 I lost due to what looks like wax moth though I imagine something else was the root cause. I also found mice in this one. I cleaned it all up and it's ready for a swarm to settle now.

Hive 2 was 2 deeps and 6 supers tall. I assumed it would be a mess when opened but was shocked and wrong. It was slap full of bees throughout the hive I had one empty super of drawn comb the bottom 2 deeps were full of eggs and larva. I also had 5 full mediums of honey capped. I closed them back up and moved to 3

Hive 3 was 2 deeps and 3 mediums. The bottom deep was drawn comb and a few bees the top deep was eggs and larva the mediums were all empty drawn comb. I removed 2 mediums and reversed the deeps. I then pulled 5 frames of capped honey from hive 2 and put it into the medium on hive 3 and closed them up.

Hive 4 was 2 deeps and 2 mediums. The two mediums were empty drawn comb I removed those. I reversed the 2 deeps the top deep had honey on the 4 outer frames with eggs in the center with larva. The now top deep was drawn comb but no eggs.

Hive 5 was three mediums. The top medium was full of eggs and larva the bottom was empty drawn comb the center was 50/50. I reversed all mediums placing the full one on the bottom.

Hive 6 was a carbon copy of hive 5 so I repeated the same steps and was done for the day.

I also cleaned the yard up cut the grass down and did basic house cleaning if you will. All in all for not messing with them or neglecting them really for a full year I was really sort of surprised they did as well as they did other than the abundance of propolise. They did manage to triple glue just about everything.

Keith

[ziffabeek]

Welcome back Keith!  Glad you are home ok and that your girls seemed to have done well too!

love,
ziffa

[AllenF]

Sounds like your girls are already for spring.

[schawee]

glad to see you back,im sure your girls are too.   ...schawee