Wednesday, June 1, 2016: 2:40pm the Bee Teacher, D and DJ arrive for a follow-up look into Fig Hive.
We smoke the bees and begin pulling out frames. These girls have really been putting away the honey! There's lots of freshly capped honey and lots of cells in which you can see the nectar pooling. What we do not see are eggs or the queen.
The Bee Teacher is fairly certain she sees multiple eggs in a few cells and strongly suspects the workers have begun to lay. It would appear the queen did not return from her mating flight (abut 25% of queens do not). Sigh.
We make plans to meet on Friday so the Bee Teacher can take our queenless hive and drop off a replacement nuc.
We smoke the bees and begin pulling out frames. These girls have really been putting away the honey! There's lots of freshly capped honey and lots of cells in which you can see the nectar pooling. What we do not see are eggs or the queen.
The Bee Teacher is fairly certain she sees multiple eggs in a few cells and strongly suspects the workers have begun to lay. It would appear the queen did not return from her mating flight (abut 25% of queens do not). Sigh.
We make plans to meet on Friday so the Bee Teacher can take our queenless hive and drop off a replacement nuc.
How about Pomegranate Hive?
We opened up Pomegranate Hive also. It is full, FULL of bees. There's brood! There's capped honey! There's capped drone cells! there's a queen marching around!
Time for a second box says the Bee Teacher.
Oh crap says the co-op,we haven't wired any more frames.
D got to work that night and got another box of frames ready to go. We put the second box on Pomegranate hive on Thursday, june 2, 2016.
Time for a second box says the Bee Teacher.
Oh crap says the co-op,we haven't wired any more frames.
D got to work that night and got another box of frames ready to go. We put the second box on Pomegranate hive on Thursday, june 2, 2016.