We started beekeeping in May of 2015. Down here where we live, we were right in the middle of a nectar flow. We had no hope of getting honey, our purpose was to keep our bees alive through the winter. We had a strong hive and a queen who was laying like nobodies business! (she is marked in with the blue dot) Well, at the end of the season, before the summer solstice, we decided to split that hive. We moved this queen and some worker bees to a friend's house. A storm moved through and knocked this hive over. Our bees disappeared and we couldn't lure them back. The split we made with these bees hatched 2 queens, but (best as we could figure), neither made it back from their mating flights. Bees can be eaten by birds, hornets, dragonflies, etc. We had lost everything and reached out in desperation to our bee club for help. Some wonderful people stepped forward and helped us maintain the bees we had left with frames of brood. Without a queen, these bees would also eventually die out. We ended up buying 2 nucleus hives from a man in our bee club. 1 nucleus was European hybrid bees, the other Russian bees. We combined the bees we had left with 1 of the nucleus hives. Our Europeans were weak, and did not survive the winter. The Russian bees were VERY strong and made it through the winter with flying colors! We split this hive in April. We also purchased a package of bees that is doing well and caught a swarm that has decided to stay with us. Welcome to our bee journey!!
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