Yesterday's Inspection

Yesterday I inspected all Beelandia's langstroth hives along with the nuc I started last week.  The weather was sunny but rather cool for a mid-June day.

Not much to new to report about the hives. In the hives installed this spring, the bees are working in the second deep box. The queen is laying eggs in  the top box, and the workers have stored or moved nectar up on the edges.

The walk-away nuc I created last week seems to be doing fine. I peeked in the top and saw queen cells capped and ready to hatch. I was a bit concerned about the number of workers in the nuc. I should've shook in more workers when I created the nuc. I will wait and see whether this creates any problems.

Video: Nucs Available

Finally Connected

I have been unable to connect to Blogger for the last 24 hours or so due to technical difficulties on their end, so I've been late with my last two reports.

Yesterday, I examined Plan Bee.... The bees are active and gentle with only one queen cup to be seen. However, I am a bit concerned about the brood pattern I saw. It was a bit too spotty for my liking. (I did not see the queen.) The bees in this hive are bringing in plenty of nectar and pollen. I had to close my inspection of this hive early as a freak shower developed toward the end of the inspection. This hive will be watched a bit.

Today, I examined Metpropolis, the other top bar hive. Readers know I have had concerns about this hive all season. I think the hive has shown a bit of an improvement. The brood pattern on some newly drawn comb looks rather good and the population of the hive seems a bit larger. I was concerned about what seemed to be a lack of food, so I added a comb of capped honey to the edge of the broodnest.

I also examined the 6 older nucs today. I am very pleased with how 4 out of the 6 nucs are doing. Four nucs seem to have productive queens with very good laying patterns. While showing signs of laying queens previously, the two other nucs don't seem to be doing well at all.

I have not looked into the two newer nucs I set up just two weeks ago.

It's Been a Long Time

The last week of weather has been terrible. Winona has been  cold and rainy, not very good weather for inspecting bees. Finally today I was able to inspect some hives, more specifically, the 7 nucs set up a week and a half ago.

I am a bit concerned about these nucs. The cold and rainy spell came at the time when each of the queens should've gone on their mating flights. I saw no evidence of queens in any of the nucs. I will be setting up for another round of grafting tomorrow and hope for better mating weather.

Step Five: Setting Up Mating Nucs

On Wednesday, ten days after grafting queen cells, I created 7 mating nucs: five in cardboard 'nuc' boxes, and 2 in a "queen castle". Following the instructions found in Lawrence Connor's book, Increase Essentials, I placed one frame of capped brood (with adhering bees), one frame of honey/pollen, and two empty drawn frames in each 'nuc'. I carefully  pressed one ripe queen cell into each frame of capped brood and shook in some "extra bees" as well. I closed up each hive and will check them again in two weeks. Hopefully, each nucleus hive will have a mated queen  by then.

Of course, this process was not without disaster. In the middle of making up one nuc hive, I tipped over the box and stirred up alot of trouble. I don't dress in a full bee suit and paid the price of that decision with 15 stings, mostly to my stomach and wrists. Yes, it hurt for a bit, but I really had no swelling, or any other ill effects from the experience.

Knocking Together Some Woodenware

Early this afternoon I spent some time putting together equipment for the increases and splits I plan for the spring. Nuc To Be Named Later's bottom box and board are presently the queen castle nuc I started the colony in last July. Some time in late March or early April, I plan to take the top box of Nuc and move it on top of a new bottom board, take out the frames in the queen castle and place them in a new box, and place this box on top of the old top box. I will store the queen castle for future increases and queen mating. Nuc will be the colony I plan to raise queens from if all goes as planned.

By the way, since this colony will no longer be a nuc but a full-fledged hive I will have to rename it. Any suggestions from readers for a new name? I'm thinking of calling it The Mothership!

A Place for a Mating Nuc, and a Hive.

I got my first confirmation for a place to put a mating nuc or two. All I need is for my hives to actually survive.

Spring Plans

I am huddled here at home after the season's first big blizzard, I've looked out over the snow-covered hives and thought..."Well what are my plans for the spring?"

After doing some research and attending the "Queen Rearing" course at the U of M last summer, I guess my focus next spring will to begin some queen-rearing. (Of course, all this depends are my hives surviving the winter. They were fed extra sugar and pollen in October and early November, and packed away nicely. There were less mites than last fall, and also very few bees with virus-like symptoms, so I am bit more confident) This means some preparation this winter, so here are my goals:

1. Finding places to place hives and mating nucs. I have one colleague (a former exterminator) who has expressed an interest, the Catholic Worker House one block away, and a small-scale perennial nursery and orchard. I have pretty much reached my limit in hives in Beelandia itself.

2. Equipment Purchases-- I made a number of purchases last summer in preparation for queen-rearing this spring (e.g. card board nucs, grafting equipment, etc. ) My new purchases might include more Pierco plastic frames (With a little extra bees wax "painted" on each frame, the bees accepted these well.), and some pollen substitute.

3. Reading and Rereading More Books-- I am obsessed with collecting as much information as possible on queen-rearing, and, unfortunately, had not had time to do that reading this fall with classes, assessment, advising, and presentations.

Did I forget anything?