Top Bar Beekeeping in Arlington Heights

Orientation flight late this afternoon.  Decent activity inside.  I added a bar in between brood yesterday to give them something to do.  And I eventually want to cycle out the Langstroth bars. First hive, I feel good about again.  I don't think it would have gone this long if there's not a queen

Chris Toomey came and brought 5 frame Langstroth NUC (nice guy), which we chopped and cropped.  Then I filled in the gaps to make spacing normal.  We did find the queen and shook her into the hive. It was quite an experience, being so rough with the bees, and no stings.  We smoked a lot!

I'm seeing fewer drones.  I'm seeing workers taking in pollen again to some extent.  There still aren't a lot inside, I think by next weekend I need to open it up and see if there is brood or not.

I assume the last batches from the previous queen are getting old enough to be foragers.  Doesn't bode that well going forward for new, but the hive still looks reasonable.

Built the second hive, in place next to the first. First one, I am still not seeing any pollen being brought in and totally inspected the hive and did not see brood, eggs or a queen. According to the calendar, by two days from now, the queen should at least have been mated or started laying, and by 7/24 at the latest should be laying. We'll see. Chris Toomey, the AH guy with some hives, was going to get me a queen and some frames to cut, but he couldn't find the queen so out of luck unless a swarm wants to take over my second hive. Not feeling too promising right now.

Not sure why.  Will put it over by the pink flowering tree.

Went up about 30 feet in the neighbor's tree.  Happened to be making a second hive today, so I put that out in Steve's backyard near the tree with lemongrass oil and some comb to try to attract. Hope the main hive can get queenright again soon!