Combining and propolis and pollen

Today is the first sunny, warm day this week. I'm taking a long weekend, so I went out this morning and checked on the hives. All are doing well except the requeened drone layer. Last weekend, I moved them to a nuc to give them an easier space to keep warm. I saw no capped worker brood, but some single eggs in cells, so I still had a little hope.

That hope disolved today. Still no worker brood--and on top of it, I saw a worker scoot her butt into a cell. So that was it for that colony. I took the nuc to the hive in Max's yard, and (against all the advice in the books, I know, I know) simply took out the frames of bees and drone brood and plunked it into the hive. I dumped the rest of the bees on the ground in front of the hive, and told them to work it out for themselves. At least it gives this hive more drawn small cell, and if they don't dislike their cousins on sight, a boost in their numbers.

The other hives are doing fine. The southern-most hive out in the field is ready for another brood box. The others can wait a bit. I'll check the wether before I do it for sure. If there are cold nights coming up, I'll wait just a bit longer.

But all the hives (now) have really good brood patters and seem to be thriving. I've cut off their supply of extra food for now. So much is blooming now that they shouldn't need it.

The small cell is being drawn out fine--mostly. Maybe it's the feeding, but they all have a bit of floating comb. Some of it I pulled off. Some already had capped brood, so I let it be. They need quick, large storage, and they need drones, so I figure I'd let them do what they need. I can cull the frames later.

Three of the colonies acquired propolis traps. I can't say that any of them seem like heavy propolizers, based on how easy opening has been, but heck, it's only been a few weeks, and they're pretty busy with brood rearing and all.

I took the pollen trap off for now. The girls collected a good amount, which I've put in the freezer. I'll put it back in a few weeks to collect "summer" pollen.