I went out and watched the bees on Tuesday. The walkaway split with the old queen is finally showing signs of forager bees going in and out. The most active hive is the mother hive that is currently queenless. There were drones going in and out, which I suppose is a good sign since a hive that needs to produce a new queen also needs drones who fly out to the mating area. Hopefully the queen will be fertilized by others than her own children to keep the genetics strong and diversified. I'll ask at our bee meeting tonight and see what the experts have to say. Meanwhile, we're praying for a little rain because it's been really dry the past few weeks and that can't be good for the nectar flow. A little rain please Lord.
Showing posts with label walk away split. Show all posts
Showing posts with label walk away split. Show all posts
Thursday, April 21, 2016
Wednesday, April 6, 2016
Spring Checkup: How Are the Girls Doing?
Fine actually. We checked on Monday April 4th to see if there were any signs of swarming. Bianca's realm was quiet. The queen is laying brood. We saw both capped and uncapped, but no drones to speak of and no queen cells. Not much chance this weaker hive will swarm.
Anya's kingdom was much busier with lots of workers, drones and drone brood. We decided we would split as soon as possible and put a queen excluder between the two lower boxes to make it easier to find the queen. But the weather has gotten colder and we decided today to take the excluder out so the bees can make the decision about the best place for the queen to protect her from the cold. It got down to 24 last night and later this week it's supposed to get back down in the 20s. So we'll wait to do a split when we get a warm day next week. Hopefully, all will be well until then.
We did a very quick in and out today to take out the excluder but it wasn't fast enough to prevent me getting stung on the ankle. When will I learn? I changed my black pants for light blue jeans but left on my black socks. The girls REALLY REALLY hate black.
So I'm taking benadryl because my entire body was itching. That quieted things down and now only my ankle is itching and swelling. I keep hoping to get to the point where stings give me no significant reaction, but it hasn't happened yet.
Anya's kingdom was much busier with lots of workers, drones and drone brood. We decided we would split as soon as possible and put a queen excluder between the two lower boxes to make it easier to find the queen. But the weather has gotten colder and we decided today to take the excluder out so the bees can make the decision about the best place for the queen to protect her from the cold. It got down to 24 last night and later this week it's supposed to get back down in the 20s. So we'll wait to do a split when we get a warm day next week. Hopefully, all will be well until then.
We did a very quick in and out today to take out the excluder but it wasn't fast enough to prevent me getting stung on the ankle. When will I learn? I changed my black pants for light blue jeans but left on my black socks. The girls REALLY REALLY hate black.
So I'm taking benadryl because my entire body was itching. That quieted things down and now only my ankle is itching and swelling. I keep hoping to get to the point where stings give me no significant reaction, but it hasn't happened yet.
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