Not so fast...

Isn't this a nice sign? A friend gave it to me a few weeks ago. I thought it would be good to put by my hives by the greenhouse. I discovered yesterday that there may be more bees crossing my property than I thought. I had been so hopeful that the Big Guy commercial beekeeper had not put hives near me. Then my kids saw trucks with supers going and coming down the road. There would be no reason for them to use my road if the hives were not somewhere on the road. So while on a walk yesterday I trespassed on the neighbor's gravel pit and found them. I found TWELVE pallets of six hives each. Yep, 72 hives. Over double what he had last year. Add to that the 72 a mile and half down the road. So, my hives are in the middle of 144 commercial beehives. So, I made a decision. I am moving two hives to a friend's property about six miles away. I will leave my two hives by the house. I am doing that for two reasons: 1. they are the farthest from the hives in the gravel pit, and 2. it is easier to have them here for field days. If at some point this summer I feel the need to move them, my friend has plenty of room for me to move them over there and we could do field days there. At first I will move one horizontal hive and one vertical hive. It will be a good comparison because I will leave one of each here. If after a month or so it is too bad for the hives here, I may move them as well. We will see. I have not moved a horizontal hive before, so it will be a new experience. Tentative move date will be Monday June 19, 2017.

I did add a super to the vertical hive by the house today. The bees looked good. There was a mouse still in the horizontal hive. I took her nest out, but she escaped down into the hive. If I move the hive I will make sure she is moved out first! Stay tuned for the rest of this story.