Lots of bees, lot's of brood, not a heck of a lot of feed. I am pulling every drop of nectar out of the colonies and putting it all in the nuc's. I need to figure out how to feed nuc's in cardboard nuc boxes?? Maybe I will barrel feed in the yard I am putting the nucs, or make up a bunch of fondant patties?

The parent colonies will be fine without feed as I pull out the queen for the nuc leaving just a queen cell in the parent hive. Because I am stripping the parent hive down to 2-3 frames of brood and bees and no queen they won't need any feed because I have stopped their brood rearing and the dandelions will provide.

It was most fantastic! I hope to be able to put it on again next year. I really enjoyed myself. I got to update our facebook page, we have a bunch of pictures. To all those who came out I want to thank you for your participation and wish you all a great upcoming year.

Here we go again! May is probably the busiest month of my beekeeping calendar. I have 155 nuc's to pull, manage my 60 mating nuc's and increase my own numbers. Not to mention farmers markets are starting and we have to get our product ready for sale. Make a trip to Calgary, as well as Williams Lake. My inspection work will also haul me around the Okanagan, Shuswap, Thompson, and the Caribou. These next few weeks are all about staying organized and not falling behind. Bring it on!!  Tomorrow I am grafting 150 cells in 4 starters. I have to keep all those cells tracked as I will be grafting from 6 colonies to ensure variation in my stock.