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On my return from work today, I found this little gem in a tree about 20 feet in front of my home hives. I was able to collect them and install into a double nuc. I gave them a frame of comb to settle on, and 3 empty frames to draw out.
Here’s a frame of bees hard at work making a new queen, seen in the peanut shaped cell on the right end of the frame. Continue reading “Busy bees making a new queen.”
Here are the cells I grafted earlier, now moved from the bar to cell jails. This specially designed bar holds each cell in a separate jail where she can emerge. The worker bees can feed her through the screen. Queens will actively hunt down other queens and unemerged cells to kill the others. This jail prevents that from happening.
I got a little time today to move the pallet hives out to the farm. These are just the hive bodies in place. I’ll move frames into them when my grafted queens are ready to join them. I’ll get the frames and bees from hives at home.
This spring I decided to build pallets for the hives headed to the farm. Over time this will be a more manageable way to move the hives. In the short term, it’s a stable base that holds two hives at once, perfect for life in the field. The pallet is made from treated lumber and exterior grade plywood. Each side has its own entrance in front with a matching length to a double nuc allowing me to use the same entrance reducers with them. The pallet has retainer clips that align and hold the hive bodies in place. I’ll get these installed in their new home soon.
Today is grafting day. Grafting is the process of creating new queens by mimicking conditions when the bees will create a queen. Continue reading “Grafting day”
It’s early spring here in the midwest, and the bees are finding bright yellow pollen in abundance. The buildup is well under way.
This is what happens when you put frames in without wiring, foundation, or anything else and forget to replace them in time. This empty frame should have went into broodnest, or at least between capped frames. Since the neighboring frame was being filled when the empty went in place, the bees simply drew out the comb double-wide in the original frame. After I cut the excess off this frame, it was good as new. I’ll return this to the hive to recap it.
This appears to be the first big day of housekeeping this spring. The hives are looking good so far, taking out the trash and bathroom breaks.
The girls are up and out on this late winter day. We’ve had a mild season so they are getting an early start to things.