Sping 2016 March 22 Bee Yard Update

The weather had rained 4-1/2" early this month.  We then had the next week in the low 90's.  Quite the swing in temperature you know.  I live in Texas, so it's pretty much normal to have spikes of extreme weather for short periods of time.
             Bees are doing very well.  Wintered nicely in the warmer then usual temperatures.  The bees were out about 100 to 200 yds flying around.  I don't think many actually left further then that as we had bees all over the property.  Not bothersome, but just hanging around.  Sometime during the week I would feed a bottle of sugar water.  Just did it for my entertainment I suppose.  Massive amount of bees you could imagine. 
           January I was able to purchase my 2 VHS queens from California.  Arrival on the 13th of April.  23 days to go.  I am counting the days because I have rather aggressive bees.  1 hive is Africanized hybrids unfortunately.  That's from the cut out I did.  I purchased 3 frames of drone for queen breeding.  Hoping to raise queens and sell them, so flooding the area with the VHS drones I would really like that.  Calm the bees down in the area. 

           Early Feb I made a Nuc box that is queenless.  I am making comb basically with them is all my goal is.  I keep dumping some nurse bees in and a frame of brood when I can.  The bees decided to fill the gap where I pulled a frame for the Nuc Box and didn't replace that frame.  Now if I could only get the bees to do that in the brood box.  For whatever reason the queen only has 5 frames drawn out in the brood chamber.  

            I made about 50 frames and a few more that were mediums.  Made a few bee boxes too.  I opted to take the honey box off the bee hive 2 (Africanized Hybrids), but they eventually just robbed it, so I put it back on.  I just started a new bee hive with the honey box, but that was a fail.  It was next to the bee hive is why.  Oh well.  I just left a new box with frames on if the bees wanted to make a new bee hive. 
          The bees are bringing in lots of pollen and nectar currently with all the wildflowers in bloom.   We have a normal spring it appears.  Bit dryer then usual and not raining inbetween dry spells frequently enough.  Were having high winds as usual in spring time with 15 to 25MPH winds.  I open and reduce the entrances when needed.  We had a few nights of freezing weather  over the weekend.  Amazing the Texas weather we get.  Just when you think Winter is over we get a cold front.

Here is a comical moment.  Again I have mean bees, I wasn't suited up this AM.

Enjoy
Zak