So I get this call yesterday from my friend Phill, whom some of you will remember that he and I did a cut out in the beginning of summer. We did the best we could with the knowledge that I had and managed to get 5 frames of brood into his deep. I had my druthers tho, don't think the queen made it into the hive. Two weeks later I go back to see if there were any eggs. There wasn't, so that meant no queen. Pretty sure this hive is gonna die out. That was three months ago.
I answer the phone and Phill says "Hey Jen, there are still bees in this hive!"
"Whaaaaat! No Way!" So I head out today with hopes that I missed something and the hive was thriving.
But alas, what I found was not much more than what I last saw three months ago. But somthing was going on. Here's the bee math that usually gets me confused: Thinking the existing brood could have had two different hatchings, 21 days apart? which would have given the hive many more bees over the summer and now they are dying out. And/or the nurse bees (or is it the worker bees) could also have laid eggs and the hive was running amok with drones and they have dyed out. There is only a couple hundred bees now, if that many.
No wax moth damage, but larvae on the floor of hive, no mites on the floor, no foul brood. Less than 10 cells with larvae. I was surprised at how clean the hive was and impressed with how the bees tried to pull this hive together.
