Looks like we better hoard the little bit of honey we have in the cupboard, because it might be all we get this year. Well, at least it feels that way.
Tuesday night we ran out to check on the girls as rain looked like a sure-thing the rest of the week. We were hoping to see three queens – each ruling over a colony. Annd, didn’t work out as planned. Again. We couldn’t find even a hint of the new queen we introduced in Ole, and Lena and Thor appear to be queenless, even though it looks like queens did emerge from the queen cells.
Division Board Feeder, photo courtesy of University of Georgia, http://www.ent.uga.edu/bees/get-started/equipment.html
And worse yet, the colonies had burned through all the nectar they had gathered this spring and they were starving. Starving! We quickly ran home, grabbed division board feeders and the 5-gal on syrup we purchased a couple months ago. We put a short gallon of syrup in each hive. We felt like very, very bad been parents at this point in time. This was as bad as Robin not figuring out that she forgot to feed the cat – and yet – couldn’t figure out why the cat was yowling. This is why we don’t have kids.
So tonight, 48 hours after feeding, Robin ran out to quickly check on the colonies. The bees exhibit much more energy – pep, pep, peppier. And, those feeders were empty. Bone dry! Amazing! But, still no signs of egg-laying queens.
Hopefully we don’t have crazy rain tonight so we can get out there Friday night, or over the weekend for more feeding. And then we’ll get good ol Andy, State Apiarist, out to look at out queen issue early next week.
I’m sure we’ll laugh about this someday. Just not now.
Idiots Keeping Bees 