Every once in a while you come across an incredible colony of honey bees who perform beyond all expectations. Our Bee Buddy hive, “Bee SC” is one of these colonies. She continues to amaze us. This colony originated from a swarm caught early in the 2018 season. She, built new comb and raised new bees at a very rapid pace so we decided to raise some daughter queen’s from her and make new starter colonies.
“Bee SC”next to some of her starter colonies produced in the summer of 2018
Throughout the summer, one by one, we started 5 new colonies using resources from this hive. Starting each colony required removing 3 frames of brood, bees, and resources. Each colony received one daughter queen produced from an egg of the “Bee SC” queen. As these new colonies grew, we continued to add resources from “Bee SC” colony to help them grow more quickly. Typically when a colony has lots of brood and bees removed they struggle producing excess honey stores. This was not the case with “Bee SC”. They were one of our best honey producers.
Fast forward, today our super hive resides in California preparing for her journey to pollinate almond trees. Like all of our strong hives she is rearing lots of brood to replace winter losses.
Final inspection and preparation before moving into the almond trees.