So this took place on the 1st and the 3rd.
I have two hives coming out of winter...... Obviously I want more bees and just success.... so what did I do...
I have two 3-deep box configurations. I put the third box and feeder on in Feb as I recall.
So for Florida I broke that top deep up and put it into two nuc boxes. and on each of those I put an empty box with 5 frames of foundation. so two - double decker nuc boxes. That was from Florida. and blocked off the entrance to both for a day.
Then from Virginia I just took off the top box and started South Carolina up again.
Then I placed a medium and queen excluder on both Florida and Virginia.
My goal is to have at least three hives by the end of the year and some honey.
What I don't know is where are the queens?
They could be in the nuc setups or in South Carolina. and Florida, or some combination of either.
Now since I did Florida on the 1st, I thought I might see some defensiveness from that hive today, but I didn't. This may indicate that the queen is in Florida and nuc setups (Sanford and Culpeper) are queenless.
I know Culpeper has eggs and maybe a queen. so I may be looking for queens shortly but I'll let the colonies stay as they are for a few days. Allo of them have bees and brood so they should be fine.
I may have to either combine Culpeper and Sanford or mix them with South Carolina... I just don't know.
Now another challenge I have to work with is wax moths and small hive beetles in Virginia. So this weekend I'll take pictures and look for queen cells in both Florida and Virginia. Virginia will also get a dose of OAd.
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