Friday, May 20: 11:30am the Bee teacher arrives to look at the second hive, known as Fig Hive as it is closest to the fig bush. She helps me get the smoker situated (oh, that's how you do it!) and we head for the hives.
We open up Fig Hive and sure enough, there are oodles of queen cells. She pinches one open and out walks a mature virgin queen. The Bee Teacher quickly catches her and marks her with a white dot. Hooray, a queen! She'll have to undertake a mating flight, but then we'll be in business. Let's take out those other queen cells.
She pinches the next one open and out walks a mature virgin queen. Um......I run and grab some tupperware while the Bee teacher marks her. She pinches open the next queen cell and out walks....you guessed it, another mature virgin queen. By the end of the day we would have a struggle for the throne the likes of which medieval europe only dreamed of. I'm going to need to fetch more tupperware.
At the end of it all, the Bee Teacher walked out of my yard with 8 virgin queens.
We open up Fig Hive and sure enough, there are oodles of queen cells. She pinches one open and out walks a mature virgin queen. The Bee Teacher quickly catches her and marks her with a white dot. Hooray, a queen! She'll have to undertake a mating flight, but then we'll be in business. Let's take out those other queen cells.
She pinches the next one open and out walks a mature virgin queen. Um......I run and grab some tupperware while the Bee teacher marks her. She pinches open the next queen cell and out walks....you guessed it, another mature virgin queen. By the end of the day we would have a struggle for the throne the likes of which medieval europe only dreamed of. I'm going to need to fetch more tupperware.
At the end of it all, the Bee Teacher walked out of my yard with 8 virgin queens.
me in my bee costume before installing the nuc into Fig Hive.