On Saturday, 29th of April, I checked in on the colonies. Development is very slow right now, due mostly to the poor weather conditions of the last two weeks. It was however interesting to see that the bees have begun drawing out the drone frames at a pretty good pace. Colonies 1 and 3 have drawn out approxiamately 30% of the drone frames. Colony 2 is a little slower and has only drawn out about 20% of the drone frame. I also placed the queen excluder on all three colonies and will just let the bees store honey in the second chamber that I gave them on the 15th.
Today I stopped by once again, just to see how they were flying as we had two consecutive days of sunshine and relatively warm weather. The bees were flying very well, but colony 2 is just not quite as strong as the other two colonies at this point. A lot can of course change in the next two weeks. All three colonies have queens that are laying well in the brood nest. Since there is a lot of brood in all three (ca. 7 frames) colonies, the colony population will begin exploding in the next three weeks. That, coupled with good flight weather, should really turn things around. At that point I may be able to give a second brood chamber as I had originally planned on the 15th of April.
Today I stopped by once again, just to see how they were flying as we had two consecutive days of sunshine and relatively warm weather. The bees were flying very well, but colony 2 is just not quite as strong as the other two colonies at this point. A lot can of course change in the next two weeks. All three colonies have queens that are laying well in the brood nest. Since there is a lot of brood in all three (ca. 7 frames) colonies, the colony population will begin exploding in the next three weeks. That, coupled with good flight weather, should really turn things around. At that point I may be able to give a second brood chamber as I had originally planned on the 15th of April.
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