So I have a hive and a NUC that are in the process of creating their own queens from supercedure cells. Counting back in the queen calendar from when I first noticed the capped queen cells there should be eggs in the hives today if the virgin queens were successful in their nuptial flights. I […]
Well, I figured that the 4th of July would be a good day to dig into the “Bees Rules” hive to catch and mark the new queen from Snyder’s. Three frames into the first brood box I ran into a frame with several capped supercedure cells. I very carefully and thoroughly inspected every frame to
Checked the “Bees Rules” hive to see if the new queen had been released. Fondant was cleaned out in the queen cage and the queen was not in it. Looks like she is out with her new minions. I pulled two ratty frames from the “Tardis” hive that I’ve wanted to get out of the
Picked up a new queen from Snyder’s. I’m a bit pissed that she was not marked. Snyder’s web page says that ALL of their queens are marked. I couldn’t bring myself to pinch the original queen from Kevin. I Polled one frame of resources, 1 frame of 30% capped brood, and 1 frame of mostly
Still waiting to hear from Snyder’s on when they will have a June queen ready for me to replace my original queen. In the mean time, the Tardis hive seems to be progressing well. The bottom brood box has five frames of mostly (20-50%) larvae and capped brood. There is a lot more drone brood
Note: It is a lot more work to inspect two hives than one little hive. In the Tardis Earlier in the week (June 3rd) I got into the Tardis hive to see if the new queen had been released. She was still in the queen cage, but the bees seemed to have accepted her.
I drove out to Frederick, MD this morning to pick up a new queen from H. T. Krantz. He doesn’t mark the queens that he sells, so I guess I’ll have to learn how to do that later this summer. Queens come in little wooden boxes with one hole blocked by fondant (cake icing?) The
At this point, I have a single hive. It is two 8 frame deeps. I started the hive from a five frame NUC on April the 14th. This should be the peak of the local nectar flow, bit I don’t see these bees taking advantage of the flow. I’m less than impressed with how much
The bees seem to finally be working on building some wax. Two of the foundation frames don’t seem to have been touched and they don’t seem to want to deal with the green drone frame. Other than that, all of the other 16 frames seem to be built out and in use. Most frames are
There is a lot of discussion on the pros and cons of solid bottom boards vs. screened bottom boards. I’m not convinced that bees need additional ventilation or that having a screened bottom will reduce mite counts. However, the screened bottom board that I have has a tray that can be used to examine what