Today I made a quick stop to remove the duct tape from the end of the new queen's cage! She has been in there for two days now so the bees are hopefully getting used to her scent. I could definitely tell a difference in the mood of the bees this time...they sounded pretty angry the last couple times, but a lot more mellow today. I'm gonna tell myself it's because they are so happy to have a new queen in the hive! Haha!
From what I've read, if the queen cage is being mobbed by bees and they won't go away when you brush them off, the likelihood they will cluster around her and kill her when she's released is high, and you should keep her in there longer. But, they seemed fine with me brushing them off today and didn't come back, so I think they are getting accustomed to her.
I put the sugar syrup back on in case they need more now for building comb and caring for future brood...we'll see if they take any this week.
Here's a video of what I did today!
Friday, May 18, 2018
Wednesday, May 16, 2018
May 16 - Installing a New Queen!
Today the odds were in my favor as our bee supplier in Stillwater just got a shipment of mated queens in, right at the moment I needed to go get one in order to still get her installed and make it home by the time the school bus arrived! I drove out to Stillwater (a little over an hour), purchased a queen and some more smoker fuel & pellets, and then turned around and drove back!
I then got my stuff together and headed over to the hive to put her in. It was recommended to put tape over the candy plug for the first couple days, and then go back to remove it. This will give the bees more time to adjust and get used to her, and increase the likelihood of them accepting her. Since pulling a piece of tape off a roll with sticky, bulky gloves doesn't work well I pre-tore some duct tape in half and folded over the ends, so they'd be super easy to grab and tear off when I got there.
Jim (our bee supplier) said to just put her wherever most of the bees are, and not to make things harder for us by putting her in the bottom box where we have to take everything apart. So, I put her right in the center box.
I will go back in a couple days to remove the tape. Then it should take them a couple more days to free her by eating the candy plug! We'll then go back at some point and..fingers crossed...will hope to see some eggs!
Here's a quick video of me installing the queen!
I then got my stuff together and headed over to the hive to put her in. It was recommended to put tape over the candy plug for the first couple days, and then go back to remove it. This will give the bees more time to adjust and get used to her, and increase the likelihood of them accepting her. Since pulling a piece of tape off a roll with sticky, bulky gloves doesn't work well I pre-tore some duct tape in half and folded over the ends, so they'd be super easy to grab and tear off when I got there.
Jim (our bee supplier) said to just put her wherever most of the bees are, and not to make things harder for us by putting her in the bottom box where we have to take everything apart. So, I put her right in the center box.
I will go back in a couple days to remove the tape. Then it should take them a couple more days to free her by eating the candy plug! We'll then go back at some point and..fingers crossed...will hope to see some eggs!
Here's a quick video of me installing the queen!
Tuesday, May 15, 2018
Checking the Bees...The Queen is Gone! :-(
Today we checked in on the bees and confirmed our suspicions...our queen is gone! There were no new eggs and no brood. :-( It seems this year instead of doing my first split, I'll have my first re-queening experience! Aaah, well, either way it's a new lesson in beekeeping! So, the next order of business is to find a new one asap! In the meantime, since the bees are bringing in honey and haven't touched the feeder pail, we took that off and put on a wet honey super. My guess is they may need it back once there's a new queen laying again, and they want to start building more comb and caring for brood, but we'll see... Hopefully soon I'll get my hands on a new queen, and then will post a video of her arrival! The latest on the nuc is that it won't be available until late May now. Stay tuned!
Here's a still shot from the inside of the hive with some frames removed, looking out toward the entrance!
Saturday, May 5, 2018
Checking the Bees: April 30 & May 3, 2018
We've had just a couple quick visits with the bees since my last post so I decided to lump them together in this post!
On April 30th the Mite Away Quick Strips had been on for 1 week so it was time to take them off. So, I went out and removed those, replaced the sugar syrup pail, and that was it! It was super windy and I had a hard time even lighting my smoker, let alone keeping any smoke where I puffed it, so I didn't want to get any deeper into the hive and upset the bees. Dad was planning to come a few days later so we looked more then!
On May 3rd we both went out and checked on the bees...not so windy so we were able to look more. We found that the eggs we saw in the last post were now capped brood, however, we did not see any new eggs.
By now we expected to have seen a lot more eggs, and brood in the various stages of development...larvae, etc. However, it appears the queen stopped laying between our last visit when we saw these eggs and now. This could mean that we've possibly lost our queen, which of course would be a big bummer...now to do a little research and decide if we may want to let the bees re-queen themselves or purchase a new queen. But for now we'll give them a little more time before we do anything. We are hoping to have a NUC soon to install in the other hive, so for now will let them "bee" until that arrives, and will check in on them when we go back to install the NUC. Other than that, we did a reversal...swapping the middle and top boxes. Here's a video from both days!
So, that's it for now...as long as the NUC comes in some time soon, the next post you'll see will be installing new bees!! :-D
On April 30th the Mite Away Quick Strips had been on for 1 week so it was time to take them off. So, I went out and removed those, replaced the sugar syrup pail, and that was it! It was super windy and I had a hard time even lighting my smoker, let alone keeping any smoke where I puffed it, so I didn't want to get any deeper into the hive and upset the bees. Dad was planning to come a few days later so we looked more then!
On May 3rd we both went out and checked on the bees...not so windy so we were able to look more. We found that the eggs we saw in the last post were now capped brood, however, we did not see any new eggs.
 |
| The eggs we saw last time are capped brood now |
So, that's it for now...as long as the NUC comes in some time soon, the next post you'll see will be installing new bees!! :-D
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