For some reason 3 weeks ago one of the Queens stopped laying, The hive is completely dead, no broad, no nothing. Its all very strange and no one knows what to make off it, This was a hive that was building up very well was filling 2 deeps. This happened to a hive last year and one has to think to ones self what did i do wrong when things seem to be going so well.

If the queen had died one would have thought the hive would have raised a new one however this is just not the case no queen cells, there is even very little wax moth. I would have thought that the wax moth would have been more prevalent. Once again this is very frustrating.

I'm wondering about wether to re-queen the remaining hive from last year and use the old queen as a backup. I want to get some queens anyway because the swarms i have caught are a little to hot for my liking.

On another note , i've been using Mann Lake Hive top feeders for 2 seasons, Recently i noticed that more and more bee's where escaping. I looked more closly and realised that the harware Cloth used on these has actually coroded and broken down. I think im going to build some of my own hive top feeders as i really dont want to replace the Harware cloth every season. I also am a bit concered about the fact that if this has corroded that the bee's have then digested this material.

I've been thinking about developing something along the line of the Brushy Moutian line but with a screened top. I dont think it would be hard to covert what i have to this and see how we get on

Rain, rain go away, come back another day!

Will it ever stop raining ! In between tropical storms i opened up this years package boxes to see where we are at. Disappointing but understandable to say the list. No point in building comb for new bee's if you cant fly to get pollen ! I was expecting 10 frames of fully drawn comb but instead saw only 6 and a half frames. In the last three weeks i think they have only had 1-2 days per week of actual flying time as its been so wet, They are drinking up the sugar water and had to put a new batch on. I sure will be glad when the rain stops or slows at least and the girls can all get flying !

I finally got some new feeders from Brushy Mountain

I'm using this on the two packages from last year. Bit more robbing but less bee's drowning There are some little lugs on the sides that i don't like as they let bee's into the hive so i am in the process of removing them or filling them in. I can see me moving over to these for everything in the not to distant future. I have closed up the entrances to cut the robbing down but i think I'm going to make some custom entrances reducers to fit these exactly.