Went out to take some high def photos of some of my bees when I noticed that my main hive didn’t seem very active. When I cracked open the hive to inspect I discovered that I had a new queen and that most of my bees were indeed missing from the hive so I’m suspecting they swarmed. The problem may have been from hive beetles because I had a few and I could kinda smell them. I had hive beetle traps but they’re not catching nearly enough. This winter I’ll be putting a lot of diatomaceous earth around the hives so that the beetle larvae will be cut to bits and interrupt their reproduction cycle. I have to do it during the winter(or a good rain) so that the precipitation will push it to the soil and not leave it on any plants, or it may hurt the hives.
Now I have to feed the “new” hive and get them up to a decent sized colony before winter. Thankfully I have a colony that I have to cut-out of a house in the area so I’ll be back up to 3 hives soon. I have no idea how large this new colony is though(it’s apparently been in the house for a few years) so it may soon be my new main hive.
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