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 built out wax, added two frames of foundation and created the ‘Misty” NUC around the original queen. We’ll see how this one goes…
FEEDER FAIL!!
I’m a bit pissed at Brushy Mountain. I bought a NUC top feeder to use in exactly this situation. So now its time to put the feeder on top of a NUC and guess what? It does not fit!! Not only does it not fit under a super (to protect it) but because the length of the risers on the feeders is the same as the outside dimensional length of a standard langstroth hive there is not enough space for the bees to get up into the feeder. This product needs to be pulled from the market!!
I got into the Tardis hive to verify that it was queen right and that the new queen was laying. Lots of wet larvae in the top box. Found the queen (still marked) in the bottom box. While I had the queen in a clip I trimmed back the two frames of fat comb in the bottom box with a serrated knife. This process really got the bees excited. I need to remember to smoke them hard the next time I have to do this.
I put the new queen from Snyder’s in the top box of the “Bees Rules” hive, between two frames of untouched foundation (after the fact this may have been a real bad placement for a new queen. Should have been between frames of larvae/capped brood).
I have been feeding the hives using plastic entrance feeders. I think that I’m seeing some robbing because of this (trimming honey comb in an open hive probably didn’t help either). Pulled the entrance feeders and set them in the open in front of the hives.