Oct 22, 2011
Decided to take Mike's advice and make a 'sugar feeder' for each of the hives. Details can be found at http://www.pennapic.org/feedingsugar.html My original hive is loaded with bees, but the newest hive, not so many! Plan on making some sort of wind breaker for the hives in the next week or two. Other than that, they're on their own for the winter.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Oct . 2, 2011
I emailed some pics of the bee beard to Mike. He called me back suggesting the beard looked like it had a queen in it. Mike recommended that I install an emery board (don’t quote me on that name). It’s basically a one inch board that goes around the parameter of the hive between the top deep and the top feeder. The board has a little slot in it that allows the bees to go in and out of the hive. Mike thought that this small opening around the center of the beard would allow the bees along with the queen to reenter the hive. He said sometimes you get a 2 queen situation and one queen along with a bunch of bees go outside the hive. I guess they normally swarm to another location, but maybe the weather kept them close to the hive. Anyway, he said if I get both queens back in the hive they’ll battle it out resulting in 1 being killed! I put the board on today, but in the process a lot of the bees lost their grip on the hive. I managed to scoop most of them up and dumped them into the top of the hive after removing the top feeder. I’ll check tomorrow to see if they cluster on the outside again. I guess nothing is predictable with bees.
I emailed some pics of the bee beard to Mike. He called me back suggesting the beard looked like it had a queen in it. Mike recommended that I install an emery board (don’t quote me on that name). It’s basically a one inch board that goes around the parameter of the hive between the top deep and the top feeder. The board has a little slot in it that allows the bees to go in and out of the hive. Mike thought that this small opening around the center of the beard would allow the bees along with the queen to reenter the hive. He said sometimes you get a 2 queen situation and one queen along with a bunch of bees go outside the hive. I guess they normally swarm to another location, but maybe the weather kept them close to the hive. Anyway, he said if I get both queens back in the hive they’ll battle it out resulting in 1 being killed! I put the board on today, but in the process a lot of the bees lost their grip on the hive. I managed to scoop most of them up and dumped them into the top of the hive after removing the top feeder. I’ll check tomorrow to see if they cluster on the outside again. I guess nothing is predictable with bees.
Oct 2, 2011
OK, what the heck is going on?? The bee are still forming a beard on the front of the old hive. They've been there for several days now and the weather has been terrible. Lots of rain and very cool temps for this time of year. It was 44 degrees this morning! I called Mike yesterday and told him about the bees, but he really didn't think there was anything I could do to get the bees to go back into the hive. I also called Tom Peck and ask if he had any suggestions. Tom thought this was unusual, but also didn't really have any suggestions. Tom said not to worry too much, the bees will take care of themself. He recommeded keeping the guard off for a while. Here are some shots of the beard:
OK, what the heck is going on?? The bee are still forming a beard on the front of the old hive. They've been there for several days now and the weather has been terrible. Lots of rain and very cool temps for this time of year. It was 44 degrees this morning! I called Mike yesterday and told him about the bees, but he really didn't think there was anything I could do to get the bees to go back into the hive. I also called Tom Peck and ask if he had any suggestions. Tom thought this was unusual, but also didn't really have any suggestions. Tom said not to worry too much, the bees will take care of themself. He recommeded keeping the guard off for a while. Here are some shots of the beard:
Sept 29, 2011
Added 1 gal syrup to each
hive top feeder. Each gal contained 1/2 rounded tablespoon of Fumagilin-B. Also put a mouse guard on the entrance of each of the hives. Returned to checkout the hives several hours later and discovered the bees had created a 'beard' on the top front of the old hive. Thought the mouse guard might be restricting the bees from re-entering the hive, so I remove the guard on the old hive. Checked back several hours later and the bee beard was still there. Weather forecast for the next couple of days is cooler temps and rain. Hoping the bees soon head back into the hive!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)