Wednesday, May 10, 2017

What is happening in the package hives right now

Package bees should all be increasing in size by now.
 2 lb Packages: The 2 lb packages by now should have their second box on. The 2 lb packages were installed around April 4th. That means new bees started emerging around April 30th. The packages will be increasing in population everyday.
 3 lb packages: The 3 lb packages were installed around April 17th. The 3 lb packages should be having emerging brood starting around now. They should be ready for their second box probably next week sometime.
If you are drawing comb on new foundation there should be syrup on the hive constantly until the comb is finished.
Pollen patties need to be on package bee colonies until early June. Package bee hives do not have the population to forage for the needs of entire colony until around June 10th. Consider this, a package hive colony installed around April 4th, new bees start emerging around April 30th. The new bees can't even start to forage until about 22 days later. Now that puts us around May 21st. It will still be another couple weeks before there is a large amount of foragers that are old enough and in large enough numbers to provide for the hive. The 3 lb packages are two weeks behind these dates. So for them, their initial time for flying foragers is around May 30th. With good populations of foragers starting around mid June.
Cold weather could have impacted some of these dates slightly if the colonies were slowed in their population numbers by not being able to expand their brood nesting area.