I got back in the bees today with a few objectives. I had to refill their half gallon feeders with syrup and remove the inserts from below the screened bottom boards. I checked on hive D, the weak hive that I added some egg and brood frames to a couple weeks prior. Turns out they're doing great now. I saw the marked queen and plenty of new eggs that looked good. The hive's honey supply has also greatly decreased as they've been building up. I went through a some of the other hives a bit to check on things. No swarm cells yet (yah) and all the hives appear to be building up well with good eggs and brood. I found the queen in hive A. She had a faint mark from a previous year, so I marked her again to make it more visible. I swapped out a couple old frames with some new foundation frames.
I've also been working on a new swarm trap. It's basically a homemade nuc box as it's the same size and will hold five deep frames, but will have a larger entrance hole. It's about done. Need to paint it, get some hardware cloth for the hole to keep birds out and then hang it in a nearby tree with some old frames in it for bait. With the rate the bees are going, I wouldn't be surprised if we get a couple swarms this year. Not sure what we'll do with them since we don't have any more hives, but I'm sure someone would take them off our hands.
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