Baby Hives

Our collection of baby hives at Deadman Creek is slowly growing. All but one of these has a queen and hopefully all will be accepted. We’ll know in about a week. These queens are from Derwin Thrash, a student of the late J.N. Russell, and an all around great guy.

Our success with these first new hives will determine when we do the remainder of our hive divisions. Last year we split our colonies twice after the honey flow. This year, with the drought, there is less brood and fewer bees. This will mean only one division, and that will only be with our strongest hives. As Thien wisely noted, better to have fewer strong hives than a lot weak ones. I couldn’t agree more.