Snelgrove et. al.

[Charlie Garrott]

I called in a little help today - Jordan Bramwell came and worked my hives with me. He is offering bee services through his company.

We set up hive 1 as a Snelgrove split. It went textbook. Jordan found the queen right off. This is an orange marked queen that came with a Whatcom County nuc I bought from last year. I successfully split her hive twice last year.

We looked through the monster hive that I was concerned about. Seems like putting the third box and a super on the hive have calmed things down. There is no sign of a pending swarm. There was not much room for the queen to lay so we got some empty comb frames put in. There is a big flow going on now, probably maple. Jordan found the queen and we marked her.

Hive 4 remaining bees (non-laying) were dumped into hive 5. Not a lot of bees. I tore down hive 4 for the resources.

Hive 5 is according to Jordan, not weak, just small. Brood in upper level. We swapped top to bottom hoping she will work her way up.

Hive 2, 6, and 7 are strong with brood, food, comb, eggs.

No queen cells anywhere!

​1,2,3 (right to left) (I got the slider boards off the screened bottom - lower sliders still in place)​

5,6,7 (right to left) (slider boards out, food frame stowed safely away)​

Now it's on to Snelgrove process for 1, apiary varroa control, weekly inspections, May feeding.....

I built a lot of things this go-around: screened bottom boards, hive stands, deep boxes, super boxes...

Got good at spreading wax on foundation.

Improved my painting skills.​

Charlie Garrott