During the week I did a quick box lift assessment and spotted 2 swarm cells on the bottom of a couple of frames in the middle of the top brood box. It seemed odd to me as they have plenty of room and this hive was established from a swarm only in October. Continue reading
I popped down to the school hives tonight to top up the feeder and was a little shocked to see that my hive lid was the wrong way around on Hive2. Upon opening her up, there was additional sign of access as a couple of girls were still wriggling around partly squashed between the feeder and the hive mat. Continue reading
After yesterdays shenanigans with the brood comb and nearly losing the queen in Hive:1. I popped down to Hive:2 to check things out and make sure they weren’t making comb in the same manner. Continue reading
I’ve been really pleased with how hive1 has progressed, so I decided I would remove the top feeder and put on a super. It was a nice warm day and the girls were busy foraging. I’m very particular when I dismantle a hive… The lid goes down then the boxes and frames go on top of that so if anything untoward happens, the lid can catch it all. Continue reading
Today I placed one of the Beetek top feeders into Hive:2 The feeder is housed in a 3/4 depth box and filled with clean hay to prevent the bees drowning. Six litres of sugar syrup solution of 1:1 was added.
During an inspection of Hive:2 a week after its “deployment” it was obvious how strong the NUC was. Already the bees have caught up in number to Hive:1 The feeding during a week of really bad weather has obviously helped them catch up. Jobs for today included locating and marking the queen, which was successful. She was marked green. The feeder frame was removed and replaced with a frame of foundation and the mouse guard was removed. A 2nd brood box was added and a frame of uncapped honey was moved up from the lower brood box to help encourage the bees up.
I really must try and get some photos taken next time.
Today my hive registration arrived. I have a nice new shiny number to paint on my hive boxes, so that’s the weekend jobs planned.
Today the NUC’s arrived for a school hives. When we managed to get into them it was clear they were very strong. I cleared 7 queen caps and inspected the NUC frames during transfer for the queen and for any health issues. All seemed well, although the queen was not located.
The transfer was into a full depth box (known as hive2). An addition 4 frames were added with foundation and a frame feeder was filled with 1:1 sugar syrup to give them a head start. A mouse guard was added to prevent robbing.
A further look into the hive today to locate the queen, following on from yesterdays inspection. Continue reading
The purpose of todays inspection was to try to locate a new queen, because the swarm that was captured and transferred to become my new hive was suspected to be queenless. Continue reading
NZ Beekeepers