Some of the honey is ready to be taken off the hives. But there is still a lot that is not quite capped enough yet to be taken.
I have also been stealing frames of brood and giving them to small nucs with new queens in them. The brood from the 2008 swarm queen on frames of new foundation put into the second brood box a few weeks ago was just about flawless and without a single cell missing or any chalk brood.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Furgle's queen
Furgle's queen is small and dark and her bees have given up laying eggs in queen cells
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Two queens in the same hive?
I have split up the hive at station three in Old Costessy - (this was the hive that I united two brood boxes together at the end of last season). On inspection yesterday there seemed to be a queen below the queen excluder and one above the queen excluder. Judging by the number of dead drones on top of the queen excluder it has been like this for some time. (drones can't get through a queen excluder)
There were three supers on this hive which I thought were filling nicely with honey. As the queen was new this year I havn't been giving a full inspection. The bees seem to have acomodated the situation OK with the bottom queen inhabiting the brood box and her bees using the first super. Then it seems the other queen was laying in the second super and her bees were putting honey in the top super. This is how it appears be but as these are black bees and the hives are under trees I find the queens almost impossible to find. I spent all year looking for one in this hive in 2007/8.
As the bees in the brood box are only on four or five frames I have taken all three supers off and stood them as a stand alone hive. I figure it won't do any harm to let the bees fill up the brood box now. The flying bees are likely to return there even if they are used to going up the the accomdation on the third floor.
Although the hive on bricks has a queen that is laying well now with several frames of brood I can't find her.
The nuc box above had it's second laying queen this year that was hiding in two slabs of comb hanging under a shallow frame and on inspection yesterday it had eggs but one queen cell as well. I was going to try again to find the queen today before deciding what to do with her and the queen cell. The queen cell was quite sneaky and hardly looked like one. It was built into the wax at the join between the bottom of the shallow frame and the 'wild' comb and didn't really stick out at all. I was too late. Today the queen cell was empty. I may as well leave these bees alone now and let them sort them selves out. If they swarm it will be a very small swarm.
All the problems I have had with this hive this year stem from leaving it on a brood and a half last year.
Quite a few of the new queens have bees that seem to want to supercede them. Furgles bees had eggs in queen cups a few days ago and now needs a closer watch.
There were three supers on this hive which I thought were filling nicely with honey. As the queen was new this year I havn't been giving a full inspection. The bees seem to have acomodated the situation OK with the bottom queen inhabiting the brood box and her bees using the first super. Then it seems the other queen was laying in the second super and her bees were putting honey in the top super. This is how it appears be but as these are black bees and the hives are under trees I find the queens almost impossible to find. I spent all year looking for one in this hive in 2007/8.
As the bees in the brood box are only on four or five frames I have taken all three supers off and stood them as a stand alone hive. I figure it won't do any harm to let the bees fill up the brood box now. The flying bees are likely to return there even if they are used to going up the the accomdation on the third floor.
Although the hive on bricks has a queen that is laying well now with several frames of brood I can't find her.
The nuc box above had it's second laying queen this year that was hiding in two slabs of comb hanging under a shallow frame and on inspection yesterday it had eggs but one queen cell as well. I was going to try again to find the queen today before deciding what to do with her and the queen cell. The queen cell was quite sneaky and hardly looked like one. It was built into the wax at the join between the bottom of the shallow frame and the 'wild' comb and didn't really stick out at all. I was too late. Today the queen cell was empty. I may as well leave these bees alone now and let them sort them selves out. If they swarm it will be a very small swarm.
All the problems I have had with this hive this year stem from leaving it on a brood and a half last year.
Quite a few of the new queens have bees that seem to want to supercede them. Furgles bees had eggs in queen cups a few days ago and now needs a closer watch.
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