02/04/2026
Tamara Lepori’s colony swarmed on January 31st and then at least one more time. She gave me the after swarm for my observation hive as it is very small. Since it was an after swarm the queen would be a virgin so we hope she finds some drones later this week. Interesting behavior of the other bees is their treating her like a mated queen surrounding her and grooming her. In a couple of weeks I plan to add more bees to this very small colony. I will spray both groups of bees with mint sugar water so they will happily combine with no problem. I have not opened my hives yet because I don’t want to break the propolis seal. I really want to see if there are drones in them. I have not seen any flying around. With all the bee colonies around here I am optimistic that there are drones out there!
