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I know this pic is a little blurry. During an inspection, I found several queen cells, so I decided to do a split. Gathered up my equipment to do so, and when I got back to the hive, this queen cell was hatching!
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...ps21339021.jpg
So I stuck her in a cage until I could get done, and move the hive to my annex apiary out at the new "Place". I used my knife to finish opening the cell, and let her out, as you see above. After a few seconds, the colony apparently could smell the new queen, and a harmonious buzz began. I watched several bees to the "happy dance", start grooming and feeding her, and finally move down onto the combs.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...ps288aa413.jpg
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Queen birth is awesome!! You have developed great skill and a little luck and together they equal success. ;)
I captured my second swarm this year and hope the ladies will find my accommodations suitable. The first swarm was installed loosely and I just let them decide on their own if the hive an sugar water was to their liking. Unfortunately they went elsewhere to find a new home.
This swarm I captured today during lunch and put the queen and as many as I could comfortably into a screen capture box and then into the bottom of the top bar hive. Sugar water feeding all around and I will check them later this weekend or Monday. I have built two and the new swarm is in my "life" hive now. I went home for lunch to offer them the hive. They had settled not 25 feet from my apiary and my single remaining hive from a dark 2012 had not swarmed from the looks of things.
I use langstroth and top bar hives, but really, really like the top bar. Painted symbols on the entrance identify the hives for me mainly as I am thinking bees don’t read much. My garden hive is the blue hive and my top bar hives are "Life" and "Pi" or π. I am just now recovering from a horrid year 2012 of two hive collapses, both corresponding with cotton field spraying in the area.
Farmers know the stuff sprayed on cotton is pure poison and I truly believe it is killing our friends the bees by the billions. What is the answer, I am not the person to know that at all. I am going to schedule a cover and seal up of my hives the day of and after spraying occurs this year. I hope it helps.
A good friend had 13 of 17 free ranging chickens all die the day after the cotton field next to them was sprayed. Coincidence? I think not.
The industry benefitting from bees the most may be slaughtering them. It would never admit to it though. The conspiracist in me says they know and are misdirecting to all types of scenarios. Mites, moths, aliens, solar flares, bad karma...
Save the bees! ;)
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It's fascinating how many uses honey has--some I knew about, some I didn't. Truly a super food!
http://www.survivallife.com/2013/03/...he-bees-knees/
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I was just reading about the lawsuit getting slapped on the EPA for allowing the use of neonicotinoids.
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Pesticides don't discriminate, as far as I know.
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Welcome back, YCC!
Where you been, what you been up too?
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Working like CRAZY mostly, and between that, working on our new place, and helping about 4 other folks with their bees also. At one point early this year, I had 13 hives. Due to aging queens, and other factors, I reduced and merged them back into 7 hives. A removal job a few weeks ago brought me back up to 8 hives. That's still a 40% increase in bees from last year, contrary to everyone else's claims of 50-60% losses. (I must be doing something right!) 4 hives are here at the house, and the other 4 are at our new place.
Over the summer break, we've taken a few outdoor adventures. Even with all the rain we've had over the last months, we've been working. Heck, when you get home, your soaked with sweat anyway, a little rain don't hurt. And if the roof is already leaking water inside the house, you just gotta get it fixed. On one particular Thursday alone, I had 15 calls, and I still have 9 jobs on the books to do. Looks like I'll be working most of the hunting season this year. Totally not complaining. We are hoping to start construction within the next two years :D
Roofing seems to be a feast or famine line of work, lol. Kinda like the bees have been this year. Man, they really packed the honey and pollen in there prior to July, and on June 7 (my b-day) we pulled about 10 gallons of honey from 4 hives. Then it rained for a solid month in July and what was left, the bees started eating because they weren't able to forage as much.
I do want to go out on a limb here and say that everyone I know who keeps bees, has had trouble with queens this year. Just like fake honey, fake queens just don't hold up to scrutiny. If anyone out there reading this is requeening with purchased queens, you are headed down a very troublesome path. Grafted queens will never perform as well as naturally raised queens, IMO, so there's another aspect of CCD that everyone (especially queen breeders) are avoiding. Now, we are finding that mating yards are full of sterile drones, and most logical beeks are leaning toward the recent study that showed 8 out of every 10 drones tested (out of thousands) were sterile.
So, between all that, I spend a little time every day reading whatever I can get my hands on, and other than that, there's eat/sleep/work/repeat. Sorry for my absence. Hoping things slow down a little bit. The wife is going back to school and working full time, and the kids use the computer to do a lot of their school-work, so my place-to-be seems to be outside, out of the way, LOL.
I will say, I've done quite a lot of experimenting with woods for friction fire in different weather conditions. I got to spend a good bit of time with my knapping mentor, so I've been touching up my skills in that area (but they still look like pleistocene projectiles LOL.)
When I do get a chance to use the computer, I read a lot of sciency stuff and stuff about bees, touch base with some beek friends, and check the weather haha. Been a REALLY busy year so far and I don't see it slowing down very much more than this until after the first of the year. If everything goes according to plan, we'll be starting on our earthen-dome-home and paying mostly cash-up-front for it within the next few years. As much as I hate money, cash is king and will usually get you a huge discount.
Been missing you guys, and I think of you all often. Hope everyone is well!
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Glad you are doing well.
About that hating money thingie.....You still have my address right? It's the least I can do to help a friend.
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Good to hear from you.. Glad to hear you are in feast mode.. LOL
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With the beeswax, it's as easy as heat and pour to make candles. The bees bought us a nice kit to make candles this year (hunny munny) so we are doing a little "crafting" for the upcoming festival. You can add scents and colors, but I prefer the natural stuff.
A double boiler is good, but you can melt the wax directly in your pouring pitcher, in a pot of water. Use butter, or pam, or the kit came with silicone spray, but I imagine it's pretty expensive. A candy thermometer is handy so you don't get the wax to it's ignition point, so keep it under 170 degrees and your good. newspaper is nice, so the wife doesn't fuss, unless she's the one making the mess ;)
I might do a how-to, but it's so simple with beeswax... melt and pour, dig out the air pockets, refill, and done.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...ps8b13f168.jpg
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Always a good post. Thanks, YCC!
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Well that's just the bees knees.
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That's pretty cool and a bright idea!
I just happened to catch this news line last night and thought you might be interested in it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/24364637
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I can see that being the case in a more urban environment, but my apiary here is only about 50-60 feet from the highway. 8 hives, and harvested 6 supers last wednesday. 54 frames rendered over 15 gallons of honey. Until I see more evidence, I'm skeptical. Sure, if you use a lure, and the bees are contained to a "test area" which is confined and then contaminated with exhaust fumes, it would disrupt your nose equally as much. Out in the open air, My bees don't seem to have a problem finding flowers ;)
Thanks for the link. I'll definitely bee keeping an eye on this :D
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