On July 6th, 2014, I also moved Cleopatra (a black queen from a split made with Mel’s stock) to the Garst Farm. She is in a single deep. She is marked yellow, but Liz and I did not see here when we looked last night (July 18). There was a […]
Today, on day 6 (larval age), the small nurse hives have a hard time defending their hives from robbers. I have of course some strong hives in the yard that appear to be looking for an easy meal. I have severely reduced the entrance of the green nuc, so that […]
Lisa was a beautiful big orange queen that arrived in my yard in early spring of 2012 with a good size swarm. Jan was picking gooseberries and saw it go into my dark green topbarhive. I moved the comb into a deep. Hoping for success, I opened the hive 2 […]
We installed our Q3 nurse hives today: In Liz’s medium queen castle: 1 frame of 50% capped brood, 1 frame of 20% open brood, some pollen, nectar and one frame with nectar honey. Shook in extra bees from Liz’s california queen hive and at Krz’s place from the […]
From Michael Bush website http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearing.htm He states that emergency queen cells may be inferior if they are made from cells on old comb: Emergency queens: “It has been stated by a number of beekeepers who should know better (including myself) that the bees are in such a hurry to […]
Day two (june 21, 2014): preparing the two nurse nucs 0830 at Liz’s house (Krz need to pick up eyeglasses at 0800 first): putting medium frames and nurse bees in one nuc. Waiting closing nuc off. Going over to Krz yard. Meeting Mel and Todd, preparing another nuc with deep […]
Here is a paper from a research group that tested if different shapes and colors help bees recognize their own hive in a grouping of hives. I know this is a unique shape that they can see: My nucs are ready with these shapes/colors to help our bees:
I had a quick look outside our nurse hive this early evening and there were bees flying in and out. There were also some bees just hanging out. They must have enough bodies to make our queen cells. Today is day 8. Our cells should be practically capped. Did not […]
I am painting 4 new nuc boxes, sanding, priming, etc. They are white now, hopefully green by this weekend. Each will have a distinctive front. I hope we have a lot of plump queen cells so that these nucs will have occupants. I can’t wait.
June 6, 2012 Nurse hive set up: [Show slideshow] Bees from 3 frames of capped brood shaken into a deep. Transported to Mel and Dawn’s yard. Additional nurse bees added by shaking all the bees from my Q1 queen hive (deep, 10 frames) into the new nurse hive. Q1 queen […]
