Comments on: Q4 off to a good start http://www.littleluceyfarm.com/honeybees/index.php/2015/05/q4-off-to-a-good-start/ Trying to get a handle on these amazing creatures Sun, 24 Apr 2016 00:42:00 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.35 By: Kristien Z http://www.littleluceyfarm.com/honeybees/index.php/2015/05/q4-off-to-a-good-start/#comment-53 Sun, 03 May 2015 21:53:04 +0000 http://www.littleluceyfarm.com/honeybees/?p=612#comment-53 That would be great. Your job is to slide out the cloak board, close the rear entrance and lift the feeder off so that you can gently peek at the queen cell bar.
Grafting went very well today, Mel gave us a near perfect frame to graft from. Plenty of larva, dark comb so that we could see the larva well and good glob of royal jelly to lift with the larva. Liz and I each did 10: 5 in old cups (reused, I am short on cups), 5 in new cups, 2 each pre-primed with ‘royal yoghurt’. Please take some pictures!!

There was a gigantic queen cell on the frame that came out. The bees build that thing in a single day. A larva was floating on a 1/4 inch of royal jelly. Those bees must have been very desperate to start a queen cell, even if it was from this older larve. Unfortunately for them, we removed that frame.

If they feed our cells as generously, we are in good shape.

]]> By: todd http://www.littleluceyfarm.com/honeybees/index.php/2015/05/q4-off-to-a-good-start/#comment-48 Sun, 03 May 2015 12:58:40 +0000 http://www.littleluceyfarm.com/honeybees/?p=612#comment-48 Kristien – you are the adventuresome one, aren’t you? I’ll help Liz on Tuesday if it can be after 2:30. Yogurt for royal jelly! Who knew?

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