Our California bees made it home safe and sound last Friday night and we have them moved into Orange Groves that are poised to bloom. Perfect timing. The bees so far that we’ve moved into the cell yard from the California load looks strong and healthy. We’re hoping that the bees we encounter down in the Orange are capable of drawing a full box of foundation. That’s the plan. We purchased 10 pallets of the Acorn double waxed deep frame and foundation; the bees did real well with that last year.

     Our queen takes have remained in the high 80% range so there is hope that we will catch up our order calendar earlier than anticipated. Yesterday, we were able to make up 90 additional mating nucs from the group we were caging. There is lots of caped brood and excellent looking queens. It doesn’t always happen so we don’t want to take it for granted when things work this well. Praise the Lord for answered prayer. We’re continuing to see a dry trend, good for queen mating but it’s starting to get concerning for crops and the swamps. The rain that Florida has received seems to go around us. I’m not complaining, especially in light of what happened to Mississippi and Arkansas last week. We continue to keep our beekeeper friends in those states and our areas in our prayers, as well as all the folks that were affected by the flooding