The weekend's forecast was calling for rain Saturday through Monday (last weekend) and I had two batches of queen cells that needed to be placed in nucs by Sunday and Monday. So, I took a half day off work(really just traded it for making the time up over the weekend) and set out to split my strongest yard of 18 hives. Normally I try to only work up 40-50 nucs in a day because it's a lot of work, but with the lousy weekend approaching I knew I had to make the most of the little time available.
By the time the truck was loaded up I didn't get started splitting up nucs until 2:30. The bee yard is in a very nice location, but you can't drive the truck up to the hives, so everything has to be carried 100 foot or so to the hives and back. My wife and son showed up later to help with all the moving of equipment and in the end we made up 87 mating nucs with the last couple hives split after it stared spitting rain. Most of them were stronger than what was necessary, but the hives were very strong and I was quite surprised I only found swarm cells in a one hive, but I knew in another week they all could have been preparing to swarm. It was nearly 10PM by the time the hives nucs were loaded, transported to the mating yard and distributed on pallets in the rain.
I want you to consider helping Christopher Stowell, a young Boy Scout and beekeeper, in his efforts to persuade Boy Scouts of America to reinstate the Beekeeping Merit Badge. There is not enough youth involvement in beekeeping. Both the involved scouts and the beekeeping community would benefit greatly if BSA will reinstate the merit badge.