Frustrated with Nature - There's Always Next Year
As a first year beekeeper, I have come to "appreciate" the challenges associated with understanding bee and colony behavior, but boy is it frustrating. Here is the back story...
I started with two colonies in May (2021). All seemed well in the apiary throughout the spring, summer and early fall, until I had a wax moth infestation in the weaker hive in September. A combination of the weak colony leaving the hive and robbers absconding with the honey left the hive a mess. My response was to clean out the frames and boxes and have a somewhat satisfying wax moth cremation ceremony in October.
The second colony was doing well throughout the season. My initial hive consolidation in October and again at Thanksgiving resulted in a brood box and three supers full of honey. I also switched out my sugar syrup feeders with a candyboard and thought everyone was happy including the queen whom I consulted with. I also "paramothed" and stored thirty plus frames of open comb for next spring.
Unfortunately, two weeks later, on another warm day, I noticed unusual activity at the hive entrance. This was not the normal flight and forage activities, but appeared to be frenzied activity by a number of drones. When I opened the hive, most of the thousands of bees were gone and a number of previously full frames were uncapped and empty of honey, with a few dozen bees inverted in the comb slurping up honey. After consultation with my mentor, I pulled the full honey frames to freeze for next spring. BUT there are at least seventeen full frames of honey and my secondary freezer is not large enough.
Here is the conundrum:
- Do I distributed honey frames (to friends and family) to store in their freezer until the spring?
- Do I freeze a certain amount for next spring and enjoy the bounty of the bees?
Any opinions and comments are welcome.