Monday, June 29, 2009

Honey stripes, Willow

I took three supers of honey off Honey Stripe's hive today and put one new one. Stripe's hive is now four supers on top on two brood boxes. I didn't go through the bottom brood box as there was no signs of immediate swarming in the top box. If they continue to make honey for a week or two more I may take the top brood box off and replace with a new one with new frames and foundation and then feed the bees until all the new foundation is all drawn out before putting any supers back on.

The late Willow's hive is a bit of a mystery. Today there were plenty of eggs laid in the brood box and plenty of queen cells in the making. The queen that I have marked green was on the last frame on the far side of the box. I took out more frames with queen cells on. Maybe my taking frames out and putting empty ones back is confusing the bees. Or maybe they just don't like this queen and want a new one. Added to those in the brood box that I took off on my last visit I now have a lot of queen cells to deal with.

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