We had a great weekend. Rachel was in from Illinois for the weekend and we enjoyed having her home for a while. Good conversation! John and Claire was in Friday night for supper and spent the night. We miss them so any time they are home is great!
Saturday, I went up to Kelley's (Kelley's Bees in Clarkson, KY) with Joey and Catherine to pick up bees and supplies. Met them at Smiths Grove. Returned there to get our taxes done afterward getting home in the early afternoon.
This afternoon Gordon (my mentor in beekeeping) came over to help me install queens in some older hives. The first hive was a challenge ... lots of bees (thousands) to find one unmarked queen. After several deep frames, Gordon spotted the queen that got away and went down into the lower deep box. After going through several frames in the lower deep he saw and captured the queen. We installed the new queen and put the hive back together, removing the queen excluder.
He could not fine the queen in the other older hive and it was on the verge of swarming with several swarm cells. We took three of the frames and put them in nucs, added bees and frames to try and start three new hives. Never did find the queen but put in some foundation frames and put the hive back together ... will see how it turns out.
Checked out two weak hives that evidently had the queens die ... added my two packages of bees to these hives. It was a weird day and I was so glad to have Gordon here to sort out the problems. I learn so much each time I am around him!
Sue Neal and I went over to Catherine's to help her install her bees into the most beautiful (hand painted) hive I have ever seen! Every thing went well.
Back to the house for the cleanup and getting some things ready for school tomorrow.
Greenwood at Greenwood tomorrow ... you know what that means!
A great weekend have two of our children home!
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