4/22/2015 — New queens and nucs from two established hives:
Caged queens |
4/25/2015 – Inspection revealed all the 4/21/2015 inserted queen cages into hives #5,6,7, and 8 have been opened by the bees and have queens roaming through the frames. This is a very good sign for going forward into spring.
4/22/2015 – Hive #1 has a queen! Where it came from is a mystery, but I must have missed it with last month’s and recent weeks inspections. Also 4 new Italian queens were obtained from carpentersapiaries.com and have been placed into new hives that were built from frames from hive #1 and hive #4. The new hives are now known as hives #5,6,7, and 8 |
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3/13/2015 – We did another split from hive #4 into a 5 frame nuc box. An inspection on 3/20/2015 showed that we had 5 capped queen cells. We will attempt to get a few queens by caging the cell groups.
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| On 11/30/2014, the results of one of the splits (our #3 hive) we made (described below) was moved to a new location about a mile away. We followed the recommended relocation process of blocking up the hive at night and then confine the bees for the next 24 hours. Then, after moving the hive, the entrance closure was removed to free the bees at their new location. A little foliage over the entrance helps encourage reorientation. As can be seen…….. the bees wanted OUT !!! Update December 25, 2014: We are happy to report that the bees in this hive have taken to their new location without problem. They seem to be healthy and happy. A hive left at the original location proved that few, if any, bees attempted to navigate to the old home despite the fact the new location is only a mile away.
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8/17/2014 — Making two new nucs from two established hives:
We successfully made two new nucs with splits done on 8/17/2014………we called them #3 and #4 hives.
Moving a frame of brood and queen cups to a new hive. The bees will create new queens. Click on pictures for full size images.
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Queen Cell |
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new queen that emerged in split hive
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