Checked on the nucs left in the back yard and one last yard with 10 hives.
With 4 nucs left out of 6, I peeked in again today.
All the fondant was gone in each of them!! This is the second patty I had put on. 3 of the nucs are still alive, 1 with fewer bees. The 4th was dead, and it was
completely my fault. 3 frames of bees 1 with capped brood, all head first in cells, and a whack of them dead on the floor. I was disgusted with myself, to get them this far and they were obviously thriving and I let them down. Bummer.
Then I went off to my last yard accompanied by a neighbour. Of the 10 hives in this yard I had 1 dead-out, a single. Full of honey and almost no bees. I found open swarm cells on the bottom of 2 frames. This one was doomed in the fall (figuratively) and I just never picked up on it.
1 other hive is weak, maybe a grapefruit sized cluster, I am guessing it's queen-less due to the lack of bees, but I shoved a half patty of fondant over it anyway. Time will tell.
The rest either got a fondant patty slid in under the inner cover, or more fondant on top of the inner cover if they were low.
So, 2 confirmed dead-outs of 51, 1 or 2 pretty weak. 3 nucs of 6 still alive (should easily have been 4).
So far so good, still a ways to go.
