Starting the 2015 Season ~ April 2015

I bought 3 packages of (3lb) Italian bees April 13, 2015.  They were each $107.  I installed them in the 3 hives that all had deep boxes on the bottom.

A couple of the black inserts broke the deep frames as I tried to put them in, so I decided just put in as many frames as I had.  I left some empty spots in all the hives, and closed them up.  I thought that would give the bees room to get settled because I had just dumped them out of their packages.

About a week later on April 21, I got into the hives, and in every hive, they had built new comb in the empty spot.  The problem was that it was not on a frame.  I went into the house quick and grabbed some rubber bands.  I took the new comb from each hive and used a rubber band to keep it in a frame.

I decided to put in a feeder into one of the hives to make up the difference since I still did not have enough frames because of the breakage.

About a week later, on April 28, I got back into the hives, and the hive that had the feeder had exploded.  All the frames were full.  The other 2 hives were not anywhere close to the hive with the feeder.  There were so many frames with eggs in them, I couldn't believe it.  It made me want to get new queens for the other 2 hives, but I decided to put a medium on top of the good hive, and take the feeder and put one in each of the other 2 hives.



About the end of March, I bought:

• 1 Bottom Board (15.00)
• 3 becks honey bee wax (11x3=33.00)
• 1 bag locking clips 18.75
• 1 top board A frame with copper $80
• 1 Honey B Healthy $50

Total was $210

When I was there the 1st time, I showed him a picture of my dead bees from the winter and he told me they had got mites.  He said if you get mites, your hives only last into February.  Albert said I could just put the new bees in and they would clean out the hive for me.  He said there were no mites left since the bees had been dead so long.