Author: barnies bees

D’oh

After rushing to replace the Queens yesterday, I did not feel comfortable about the old Queen in the new Hive 5. I could not find her yesterday and that was unexpected as she is very large and marked green. So today at lunch I decided to do one more quick check on the hive. As I was looking through the Hive I noticed quite a few bees heading underneath the screened bottom board. I removed the deep and flipped the bottom board and there she was. I moved her into the deep and I will check on her in a few days. I was in a rush yesterday after work, as we had a dinner event at a friends house, and I did not want the Queens left unattended overnight, and I messed up some how. I still cannot figure out how, but at least she is safe.

Lesson learned/note to self – never rush and always give yourself enough time to do the best job that you can do.

2019 02 21 – New Queens

I received my new Queens from Old Sol Bees, (via the club), today.

I installed one in Hive 1 and one in Hive 2. I moved the Queen from Hive 8 into a nuc, 7a*, and added a new Queen to Hive 8. Hive 8 had been a very spotty layer since I purchased the nuc in April, so I am hoping a new Queen will set them up better to survive fall/winter. I also split Hive 1 and created a new Hive 5 with the Queen from Hive 1. The old Hive 5 is now Hive 7b*.

* Hive 7 is a 10 frame nuc with a separator board creating 2 nucs.

Quick Queen check

My son and I did a quick check at lunch in preparation for two new queens arriving tomorrow from Old Sol Bees. I was hoping to split a couple of abundant hives but now it looks like I will have to add one queen to hive 2, (the queen absconded yesterday with a small retinue), and the other to hive 3, (the current queen is not laying very well). I was hoping to add a queen to hive 8 as she has been spotty since I acquired the nuc from Foothills honey in April, but I now may need to look at combining hives before winter.

She swarmed Jim!

So, this hive swarmed this morning. Only a softball sized swarm, but swarm they did. I caught the swarm, with the queen, and placed them in a nuc with drawn comb, but they were gone in the evening. Both of these Starr Farm queens are now gone, and neither of them ever laid very well. There are still a lot of bees in this hive so I will add a new queen on Thursday. Luckily I had two queens ordered.

2019 07 22

Converted a 10-frame deep into 2 “5-frame” nucs. It’s still one box, but entrances are on opposite sides. Last week at the monthly PMBA meeting, Harry Vanderpool spoke on overwintering with nucs and the success he has experienced. So I thought I would give it a try with a couple of Hives. Everything is built and ready to go, now I just need to decide on where to get the bees from and whether or not to let them create their own queen, or purchase a couple. Decisions, decision, decisions, but I am leaning towards letting the bees do what bees do best and create their own queen.