Otter Jotter #4 | Day Off with the Queen Bee Riding Shotgun - April 2024

Friday, the Queen Bee and I both had the day off, so we shared the day with a great bee adventure. After collecting the supers, we headed to Planet Mares to see the girls. 

 Five weeks ago, I had paid the girls a visit and found many hives stuffed full of bees, drones and drone cells plus a number of queen cells. Way too early in the spring for this behavior. Knowing that my schedule was very busy, and I might not be able to visit the apiary for a few weeks, I checked the forecast, rolled the dice and started making splits to avoid swarms. 

 When arriving Friday, we discovered that most of the splits had taken and the bees were out and about bringing in pollen and nectar.  The “Queen Bee” jumped into her full PPE and started playing photographer and helper. After conducting a few more splits and distributing a pallet load of supers throughout the apiary, we gathered all of the empty syrup buckets and candy boards that I had put on previously to help the bees get through the last chilly weather of early spring. 

 Saturday the boys helped me to set up our new Super-Max spinner that my old friend Tom Chandler and I picked up on spring break. It was nice to catch up with him and we will be taking bees to his property sometime later this spring! I spent 34 hours last fall spinning honey so I’m excited to try out the new spinner.

We also went out on two bee-valuations to see where else we could place our hives that would provide a good food and water source for the bees! Buzz Buzz for now… 👀🐝🐝