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:
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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.
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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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Read on . . . »
THE FOLLOWING HAS BEEN UPDATED SINCE ORIGINALLY POSTED.
I discovered a possible swarm cell in Hive #2 about ten minutes ago.
THE FOLLOWING HAS BEEN UPDATED SINCE ORIGINALLY POSTED.
I removed the hive top feeders from both of our hives on Friday the 13th. I installed double-frame feeders instead (aka division board feeders). The whole procedure was fraught with peril, plenty of opportunity to injure or kill a queen bee. Then today I was cleaning up the hive top feeders and noticed these dead bees on the underside of one of them:
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Does the bee on the end look like a dead queen to you? Just asking.
UPDATE (August 20/11): I had yet to spot a queen in any of our hives at this point. The large bee in this photo is clearly not a queen.
THE FOLLOWING HAS BEEN UPDATED SINCE ORIGINALLY POSTED.
I did a full inspection of Hive #1 today, the first inspection of the year. I also moved the hive to a new location a couple feet away, further from a small walkway that cut too much into the bees’ flightpath.
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That’s the hive on the left and the new location on the right. I didn’t use a smoker or a sugar spray bottle. The bees were disoriented but calm. It’s possible I could have done without my veil or gloves. But I’m not that lovey-dovey with the bees just yet. I’ll explain everything after the video.
Read on . . . »
THE FOLLOWING HAS BEEN UPDATED SINCE ORIGINALLY POSTED.
File this one under: “Stuff We’ve Thought About Doing But Aren’t Sure We’ll Do Because We Don’t Really Know What We’re Doing Yet.”
If all goes well, we might be able to harvest some honey from two of our Langstroth hives this year. Our plan has always been to cut the honey comb out of foundationless frames and keep it as comb honey, or crush and strain the honey out of the comb and bottle it from there.
But should we use 9 frames in the honey supers or 10? Here’s one of our honey supers with a 9-frame spacing:
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What follows is a continuation of the previous post, Exclude the Queen, or Not?
I’ve been reading more about queen excluders (QEs). Here’s some online info from people who I trust more than me: Honey Bee Suite; Beesource; Long Lane and David Burns (or Long Lane again).
All the tips from the previous post for keeping the queen out of the honey supers are mentioned in the above, along with some other suggestions. More than a few articles on QEs are available at Beesource. The consensus? There is none. Many beekeepers say throw away the excluders because they’re more trouble than they’re worth and dealing with some brood in the honey isn’t the end of the world. The brood will hatch, the cells will be refilled with honey and that’s it. Nothing to it.
Read on . . . »
The best beekeeping is often hands-off. Leave the bees alone. I need to find the right balance between managing the bees and allowing the bees to manage themselves. A case in point: queen excluders.
I’ve been on the fence about using queen excluders since before I got my first nuc box in July 2010. A queen excluder is a screen with openings wide enough to allow worker bees to pass through but narrow enough to prevent the larger queen (and drones) from getting through. It’s placed below honey supers so the queen can’t lay eggs in the honey (i.e., the honey us humans will eat). Which seems like a good idea, but I’m not so sure.
I’ve heard too many beekeepers online refer to queen excluders as “honey excluders,” because most worker bees would rather stay down below before trying to squeeze through the excluder. Subsequently, the bees will fill up the brood nest with honey before they go above the excluder, which can leave the queen honey bound (no place to lay her eggs) and the brood chamber mighty crowded, which encourages swarming. Not the most desirable situation.
Read on . . . »
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