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2025 Beekeeping records

Feb 10: I have inspected all hives except for Vallejo, which I'm planning to visit this weekend (probably)

So only one colony has collapsed in winter (Vermillion  Foxes). That makes losses 40%, which is more than I would have liked, but better than average for California this year

That also puts an end to the Foxes gene line

The hives south of Santa Rosa all have a bit of an ant problem; I'll see if they manage it as the colonies gain strength, or if they'll need help. I have ant resistant stand for 1 hive, I should probably start working on making more. On the other hand, ants seem to be stealing honey from the edges of frames, and are not interested in brood, so I don't think the ant problem is urgent

Also, hives south of Santa Rosa have drone brood and should be ready for a split

Unfortunately there's no pictures this time, I tried to record a video of inspecting the Cyanide Sharks, but my head camera was pointing above the frames I was inspecting, so the video is useless. I'll try again next time

Cyanide Sharks had an episode of dhiarrea the day after inspection; But it seems to have been a one time thing. Not sure what the issue was, but i suspect it was caused by stress from the inspection (same as with humans)

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Feb 17: I checked Ethanol Woodpeckers this weekend. Very strong colony, lots of brood, healthy looking queen. Saw a couple drones and some drone brood. They'll need to be split soon, probably in early March. I knew they would be strong, but it's good to be certain

Today it's pretty chilly in Lake county, only around 10C/50F, but Cyanide Sharks are very active. Proper spring starts this Thurdsay, I imagine they'll be gaining strength quickly. Unfortunately I won't be able to split them till at least mid March, here in the mountains spring starts a little later, so there are no drones yet, but I'm close to being ready to set up a new apiary in Upper Lake on my own land

Some footage of Cyanide Sharks

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Mar 21: I've been neglecting the logs, but I've been busy

First of all, I've prepared 3 new hives at the new site in Upper Lake (first time I'm actually beekeeping on my own land)

I'll call those hives Hydrogen, Helium, and Lithium

I've also done some splits:

• Ethanol Woodpeckers were split on Feb 28; Original queen was left in the Ethanol hive, most of the brood went into the empty Copper hive
• Cobalt Badgers were split on Mar 06, queen was left in the Cobalt hive, most of the brood went into Vermillion hive. This is not the normal way to split hives, the foragers would keep returning to the original hive, but I assumed most of the bees on frames were nurses who have never been outside their hive, and would not return. We'll see if it works out. If not then.. well Badgers are meaner than other colonies I have, I'm not sure if i want more of this genetics, at least the original hive will have a brood break
• Ammonia Bears have been split on Mar 06, most of the brood stayed in Ammonia hive, queen went into Hydrogen hive
• Cyanide Sharks have been split on Mar 08, most of the brood stayed in Cyanide hive, the queen went into Lithium hive

I've made a video of Cyanide Sharks split: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_ctZ4eLT98

A few days after splitting Cobalt Badgers I've got a call from the land owner that there was a swarm next to the hives; It's unlikely that the swarm came from elsewhere, so it must have been Cobalt Badgers that swarmed

The swarm was a bit too high to reach comfortably, so the best I could do was leave a swarm trap nearby. I'll see if there's any bees in the box this Sunday Mar 23

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Mar 23: Checked Santa Rosa hives today

The swarm at the Longer Table farm didn't move into the box; I believe they have already decided on a place by the time I placed the swarm trap. Both hives seem active on the outside, so I believe they should be able to requeen

Silver Porcupines were very full, and I think I saw some queen cells (uncapped). Took all the frames where I found queen cells, but not the queen, I think; Hard to be certain, the split was a little chaotic given how many bees there were; but, given the circumstances, they behaved very well. Moved the presumably queenless split into Helium hive in Upper Lake

Methane Wolves have grown stronger, but I decided the split could wait 2-3 more weeks. Gave them some extra frames

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Mar 24: Went to Highland Springs to check my swarm traps; no swarms, no scout activity for now. On the other hand, the known wild bee colony is alive and active. I'm sure swarms will start soon

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Mar 30: I checked Copper Woodpeckers yesterday; Unfortunately, looks like the split did not succeed - the hive had a queen and maybe 2 dozen bees, no brood. My explaination would be that they raised too many queens and swarmed several times, not leaving enough bees inside. I hope they established a good colony somewhere

I was on my way to Vallejo and didn't have all the tools I needed with me. I took 1 frame of brood and nurse bees from the Methane Wolves hive, and moved it into the Copper hive. There's a chance they'll accept the queen, though I'm not sure - I didn't even have any anis water to spray on them to prevent fighting. I'm not sure what the chances are of them not killing the queen, but i felt like it was the best I could do

I also saw some queen cells in the Methane Wolves hive; I don't think I saw any larvae in the cells I checked, but not sure. Maybe it was a mistake not to split them last week. I didn't have a box for the split with me, and I won't be able to visit them for 2 weeks or so.. so we'll see how it goes

Ethanol Woodpeckers are looking pretty good, the queen is very active, lots of brood Here's a picture of their queen

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Apr 18: I have been neglecting the records lately, but things have been happening

Copper woodpeckers have failed; there's a tiny queenless cluster of bees and mostly robbed hive. Well, I didn't have a lot of hope for them anyway

On April 5 I got back in the afternoon and found a swarm outside the swarm trap on my front porch

These swarm traps have the lid screded on, and the cluster was covering 2 of the screws, so I couldn't just scoop them up and dump them into the box that easily. So I decided I could try to urge them into the entrance, and it worked

In a bit I saw the queen among the bees getting into the entrance. Try to spot her here, I zoom in on her when I see her, so that's not too hard

I'm pretty sure they came from the Cyanide Sharks hive, though the timeline doesn't seem plausible (4 weeks after the split, that means that they have kept 2 queens alive, and both have gone on mating flights, but I saw a reduction in entrance activity at the Cyanide Sharks hive after the swarm's appearance, so I'll be assuming the swarm came from that hive)

I checked the hive the next day, they did have a healthy looking queen and a viable population of workers, I think they'll be fine. Here's a picture of their queen

On April 13 I took the swarm to Santa Rosa and moved them into the Copper hive, so they're Copper Sharks now

The swarm trap I left at the Longer Table farm has got a swarm

I took them to Lakeport for now, will figure out what to do with them later. I don't want to put them in a hive in Lakeport, last year bees from Santa Rosa didn't do very well in Lakeport.. though I don't have a huge sample size, maybe I'm jumping to conclusions

Also, here's a video of the new queen of Ammonia Bears

She's striped, so a little more challenging to spot. On April 13 she had a lot of eggs and larvae of all ages, but no capped brood yet, so she started laying eggs about a week before that

The Silver Porcupines split I've done on Mar 23, it appeared that I had moved the queen to the Helium hive, they had a lot of eggs and brood, and were getting full; Couldn't find the queen herself, but I'm sure she was there. I suspect she might be very dark, drones in that hive were dark. I did a blind split and put it into the Propane hive in Lakeport. I didn't write down the date, but it must have been on the weekend of April 12 I think. I'll need to check which hive has the queen cells now

I also have a swarm in a swarm trap in Upper Lake, will move it into the Kerosene hive as soon as I have some time, probably next week

Still no swarms in Highland springs; well, last year the fist swarm I caught there was in the very end of april, so there's hope

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May 11: I've been neglecting the notes again, but I've not been slacking

Here's the summary of all the hives

Methane Wolves - healthy (thought they swarmed, but no, turned out i just saw some old queen cells)
Ammonia Bears - healthy
Copper Eagles - the swarm I put in the Copper hive (suspected Sharks geneline) was unsuccessful. Not sure what happened, died or absconded? 3 weeks after moving the swarm into the hive, I came to check it and saw a new (huge) swarm moving in right in front of me. Hive is active
Vermillion Badgers - swarmed. I didn't think they would grow strong that fast after requeening, but anyway, they'll have to raise a new queen once again
Silver Possums - Previously Porcupine colony, swarmed and failed to requeen; populated with a swarm caught near lake Mendocino on May 11. At the time of transfer I saw eggs, but no larvae yet
Ethanol Woodpeckers - Last time i checked they were healthy and strong. I split them inside the hive
Cyanide Sharks - healthy, successfully requeened, gaining strength quickly
Kerosene Hawks - new swarm caught in Upper Lake. Healthy, lots of brood, but not very strong yet
Propane Sharks - the original Porcupines colony apparently had a queen failure, she laid a bunch of drone eggs and died, I think. The hive failed to raise a new queen. I tried giving them a couple frames of eggs and brood from Lithium Sharks, but ended up giving them the queen.. The colony is good now
Cobalt Tigers - Badgers colony failed to requeen after split; I replaced them with a swarm caught nearby
Hydrogen Bears - Swarmed. Should have a virgin queen at this point, but failed to locate her
Helium Bears - The original colony, Silver Porcupines, ended up queenless. Gave them a couple of frames from Hydrogen Bears, one frame had some queen cells
Saw a grown up queen and some eggs on May 9. The queen almost escaped when I tried to take a picture of her (hopped off the frame into the grass). Fortunately I was able to get her on a brush and return her to the hive
Lithium Sharks - queen moved to the Propane hive, hive split in half, both halves are raising queens

Summaries of hives and genetic lines

Genetic lines:

I've uploaded 2 Youtube videos recently

Swarm Hunt

Copper Eagles arrival