Building Brood

On April 4th, we ordered six new packages of bees. We spent two months building up those six hives and by June 4th, it was time to split them make room for more growth. Where we found a queen, we left her and allowed the other six hives to make a new queen for themselves. The six hives were split into twelve and stacked up on each other with the openings facing different directions. This did save some space but created some problems when we wanted to check on the bottom hives! We had to move the top two or three supers on each hive to get to the one below which was hard work in the hot June sun!

In addition to the six new ones we split, we also split one existing hive. So far after three weeks, all but one of these hives are looking good. One is still weak and struggling. But we had plans for it...