Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Finally

Today's weather was finally summer-like: muggy, bright sun, and bees were out flying. All the hives had activity at the entrance. A few are just chock-full of bees.

I inspected the langstroth hives today. Bee Glad... has eggs layed in all three boxes. The queen is on the move. The brood pattern was fairly solid, and the bees themselves were very gentle. I pulled a capped drone brood frame, and replaced it with one that had been in the freezer for two weeks. (It was thawed!)

I cannot say that Lib-BEE-taria was not all that gentle. They were flightly, defensive, and running all over the comb. They still act queenless, and there was very little activity in the top box. I put some young open brood from one of the crowded nucs into this hive and will hope for the best.

Worker Bees... is doing fine. The queen is also laying in all three boxes, and they were as gentle as Bee Glad.... I also extracted some capped drone brood and replaced it with a formerly frozen frame. There were a few open queen cells in the hive but nothing was laid in them. I dusted this hive with powdered sugar as well.

I finished off inspecting the hive I created last week from one of the nucs I started in April. This hive is thriving. The bees were working on all 10 frames, and there was some crowding already. I decided to add a second box to the hive.

Aside: Any suggestions on what to name this new hive? Or am I getting large enough that I need to brand them with numbers?

I have run out of deep hive boxes so I will need to make a trip to B and B Honey Farm sometime this week.

2 comments:

David King said...

How about Atta-BEE?

david

http://www.lagardenblog.com/

Abelisto said...

Atta-BEE it is!

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