Update to the 5/24 Inspection, and a Suggestion...

I have to sing the praises of our friend Marva. She has been an incredible resource for us and is one of those women you just warm up to immediately. She is passionate about her bees, and knows so much. She has helped us through some screw ups as new beekeepers. That brings me to my suggestion...

FIND A MENTOR 

Find someone you click with, someone who has a similar philosophy, and someone who has seen the ups and downs of beekeeping. Marva has always been patient with our questions, and never seems to mind answering them...her love for beekeeping is evident and you can hear it in her voice.

Her response to my written question about our potentially queenless hive was good enough to re-post entirely (especially the bit about teenagers and xboxes). Hoping this is useful information for other newbies out there.

'Yes, you are correct about the bees. If there is no queen they have no real purpose and act listless....kind of like waking up a bunch of teenagers before noon after they were up all night playing xbox.

 You should see eggs typically within a week of placing a swarm into a box. If she is an older queen, then it may be as little as 2-3 days, with a virgin queen she may have to do a mating flight or three and then it will be a week or two before she's laying. If you take a frame of brood, be sure you have enough small rice grain sized eggs (within 1-3 days old) so they can move some to a queen cell and still feed them the royal jelly so it develops into a queen.

Transfering a swarm may be the easier route....if you chose to do this, place a layer of newspaper with a few slits cut into it onto the top of the first deep box. spray the paper with sugar water. Then place a second empty deep on top of the newspaper interface. Pour the new swarm into the upper box and they will eventually blend together - eating through the paper in a few days.

Be sure to go add frames into the upper box soon after blending though...those creative bees will start building comb anywhere they want to, you know!'

So it looks like we will be on the hunt for a swarm to add, and hopefully soon enough for this hive to take off as well.

Again, find a mentor. We lucked out when a good friend of ours told us his sister keeps bees. If you can't find someone who keeps bees, join a club (we are also members of Denver Bee, which exposes us to great speakers) or find a forum online. It will save you hours of panic and puzzling, I guarantee!