Long Live the queen

I cut back on my queen order, down to 5. I'd only had 9 okay hives alive and unable to buy frames of brood with ease. They are sitting in the kitchen for now, need to get them out to the splits I made yesterday. What you are seeing here is a 3 hole cage, right side has a fondant candy plug that all the bees will eat through when I remove the cork covering the end. The left side has a cork to keep the bees in, I will pull the cork out if queen is not released in 3 days (never had to do it). The queen has her head aimed for 12 oclock, tail towards 6 oclock. It can be seen here that she is larger than the rest, with a little food and attention her abdomen does get larger. These are the cordovan italians from CF Koehnen, a favorite of mine. CLICK IMAGE FOR DETAILS

Spring fever

I am not sure if I'll need them all but I went ahead and ordered 20 queens for expected delivery April 6th. I thought about packages but they are nearly $100 each.

Beekeeping

I've kept bees for maybe 8 years now. Last year I got real lazy, my back was sore, and I was following the market a lot more. I sold the bulk of my hives and kept some. More than 50% of what I had alive has died. Overall my low chemical methods have had 50% winter kill but this winter it was likely more from a lazy beekeeper not feeding enough. I've got maybe 10 hives alive now. I do not want to get large again but would prefer to grow some as able and sell off some hives each year to sell off what equipment I have (enough for 100). Just feeding the bees today my back is quite sore, lifting patients at work does not trouble me this much. So I plan to chronicle my casual reexpansion here. The following pic is from on of the hives today. In general I am happy with what is alive now.