Jeff Harris, from Clarenville, Newfoundland, dropped off some photos and video of one of his swarms from July 18th, 2011. I plan to do everything I can to avoid swarms where I live. Even though the bees are their most docile in this state, I got a feeling most people in my urban ‘hood would not react well to seeing my bees swarm like this. I’ll leave it to Jeff to tell us about it in the comments.
Note to urban beekeepers: Don’t call them swarms. You want to keep your neighbours’ freak-out factor to a minimum. Call them splinter colonies instead.
Here’s a short uneventful video I took of the hives today where I mistakenly refer to Hive #2 as Hive #1. (I need to paint numbers on the damn things.)
And now here’s a quick review of the 4 hives in our backyard as they stand today:
Read on . . . »
I heard what’s often referred to as piping from the bottom of Hive #1 yesterday. (Read more about piping at Honey Bee Suite.)
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Piping sounds usually come from newly emerged queen bees. We requeened this hive back on July 11th. I’m not sure what to think. Perhaps it’s not piping at all. At any rate, I got it on tape:
You might need to crank up your speakers.
I don’t think I’ve ever posted a photo of a queen bee. So here you go, a photo of a marked queen bee:
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I think she’s an Italian queen bee, but I’m not sure.
I inspected Hive #1 today and was glad to see that the honey super is starting to fill up with honey. Nine frames spread out in a ten frame super, alternating plastic with foundationless frames. I didn’t take any photos or videos. Snapping off photos during an inspection, especially when I’m alone, only complicates things (but I’ll do what I can for more instructive posts). My main concern was to make sure the queen wasn’t honey bound. I found three frames in the middle of the top box that looked like this…
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…worker brood in the middle surrounded by pollen and honey, only this time everything looked dirtier and darker because the comb isn’t fresh like it was when the photo was taken last year. Still, it’s more or less what I wanted to see. Honey and pollen, new worker brood and enough space for the queen to continue laying.
The foundationless frames in the top box of Hive #1 were migrated to Hive #2 a while back, so it’s a mostly conventional hive now with perhaps three or four foundationless frames left over in the bottom brood box. The minimized number of foundationless frames — which perhaps knocks back drone production — might have something to do with the honey super filling with honey now. (Pure speculation.) The bees in Hive #2, a hive that is about 80% foundationless, show no signs of building in their honey super yet. So go figure. Okay then, let’s move on to even more boringer details.
Read on . . . »
UPDATE (July 12/11): FOR ANYONE WHO WANTS TO KNOW EXACTLY WHY AND HOW TO REQUEEN, I OFFER LESSON 19 FROM MY PERSONAL HERO, DAVID BURNS, AND QUEEN INTRODUCTION FROM STRACHAN APIARIES.
We installed a new queen today (in Hive #1). Here’s the video:
SELECT 720p FOR HIGH DEFINITION AND OPTIMAL FULL SCREEN VIDEO PLAYBACK.
Read on . . . »
Two more nucs and a queen in her cage arrived at our house last night. I can’t install the nucs or do anything with the bees today due to high winds in our area. The new queen is intended for one of our hives that may be queenless (Hive #1). If it isn’t queenless, we plan to requeen it anyway (squish the old queen and replace it with the new queen). I have a general idea of how to do that. My only concern is finding the old queen first. We’ve never been able to spot the queens in either of our hives. Can we introduce a new queen to a hive that already has a queen without “dispatching” the old queen first? Probably not. I’m not sure what we’ll do if we can’t find the old queen. Hopefully we’ll have the assistance of a local experienced beekeeper (I should say the local experienced beekeeper) to guide us through the process. Whatever happens, I’ll tell you about in a day or two. In the meantime, here’s a short video of the queen in her cage.
SELECT 480p FOR HIGHER DEFINITION VIDEO PLAYBACK.
Updates will appear in the comments.
It’s probably nothing, but the bees in one of my hives, a mostly foundationless hive with a high drone population, are beginning to concern me. I’m thinking they might be ready to swarm. Or they might be queenless. Am I just a paranoid novice beekeeper throwing out theories that will never stick? Most likely. But stranger things have happened.
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Well, we inspected Hive #1 today because we were concerned about swarming. We found a few queen cells cups, but also plenty of empty cells for the queen to keep laying. I don’t think the colony is at risk of swarming. It does, however, seem to be overrun by drones. This frame containing both capped worker brood and drone brood was one of the better looking frames — because it wasn’t filled entirely with drones:
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CLICK THIS LINK FOR A CLOSER LOOK ON A SEPARATE PAGE.
Read on . . . »
THE FOLLOWING HAS BEEN UPDATED SINCE ORIGINALLY POSTED.
I discovered a possible swarm cell in Hive #2 about ten minutes ago.
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