I checked my two NUCs again today which should have been day 18. In hive 6 the queen cell was open on the tip which seemed promising, but upon closer inspection, I realized that the queen was still in the cell. There were no bees in or on the open […]
I went into all the new hives again today to check the hatching situation and to remove some of the cages. In my queen castle, on the white side, a Lisa had hatched, judging from the beautiful flap that hung from the cell. THis hive had been given two cages, […]
June 30 When I opened the center compartment of my queen castle, I fashioned a robbing screen from 8 count screen. It was based on a simple screen I had seen online that was designed for a traditional entrance along the bottom board. Because the entrance on this compartment is […]
It’s late so I’ll be brief. I checked my two NUCs today at around 3 pm and neither queen (George 2) had yet emerged. Hive 6 only had a handful of bees with another handful of capped brood cells available. I opened the cage and I expect that she will […]
The first nuc I went into was the purple one. This is a cell that I grafted from George. Meet George’s offspring: The next nuc is the orange one. This is one that Andrew grafted from George. […]
Today is day 13 in the lives of our Q3 queens and I peeked in at them at 6pm, after a hot and muggy day. I opened all the cages, figuring that the bees had become acquainted with their new queen cell. Out of the 7 queen cells that I […]
Early on the morning of June 29th, we met at Kristien’s yard to assess the queen cells. First we checked the deep nurse colony: The bee density was not as strong as we had hoped for. A possible solution to this is to gather the bees for the nurse colony […]
I decided to name my Q1 Queen Mother, Sally. All of the grafted queen larvae produced Sally 2 queens. I’m about 80% sure Sally swarmed shortly thereafter, so hive 1 now also has a Sally 2a. I am still quite happy with Sally 2a in hive 1. I also have […]
It appears that rearing queens triggers the expectant mom renovation urge in me! This time I have modified some medium boxes into nucs! First I took a screen bottom board and added a center divider so that the bees in each nuc can’t reach the other. I also made up […]
Today, on day 6 (larval age), the small nurse hives have a hard time defending their hives from robbers. I have of course some strong hives in the yard that appear to be looking for an easy meal. I have severely reduced the entrance of the green nuc, so that […]
