I’ll be finished with mite treatment by next week then on to preparing for Fall. For me, this process is to balance the honey supplies between all the hives that should over winter and combine those hives that are weak. I also feed to keep the queens productive. Young fat bees for the winter!

Adding to the fun of beekeeping, the small swarm I captured about three weeks ago some 5 miles from my hives (so not my bees) is doing well. It has a good queen that has produced several frames of both eggs and  brood.The swarm is in  five frame, medium nuc boxes two high. I added  frames of capped honey and some pollen to the top box and frames of uncapped honey to the bottom box. The swarm landed in a bee gold mine, everything they needed to get started.

I need to decide if I want to attempt to over winter it as a nuc or combine it into a queen-less hive. I’m leaning towards the over winter as a nuc decision which I’ll make in the next two weeks based on the hive’s strength.