Mary & Myrina
83F
Mostly Sunny
Myrina seemed as aggressive as usual lately. I swear smoke makes them angry not passive. I use pine needles as fuel. Have all year. It worked fine in Spring and still does on Mary. As soon as I smoke them from the top they come looking for me. As apposed to eating their honey like good little bees.
The colony had not yet drawn out the top super. For some reason I thought they had. There was plenty of activity right under the inner cover though. I did not go into the hive body. I left them a pollen patty on the excluder and closed her up.
It went the same for Mary. Activity under the inner cover but no drawn wax. Still if the new Queen took it will be awhile till they can build comb. I gave her two pollen patties. It takes them both a week to eat a single patty. I'm wondering what Mary will do with two of them. Plus she can use the help.
These pollen substitute patties are a pain. I make them from Megabee dry mix. I add Karo syrup, mix, let stand for a day, then freeze until needed. Even when frozen they will stick to everything. When I first tried to put one in a hive it became a tar baby. It was ten minutes before I got it, well most of it, in the hive. Wax paper didn't help at all. Crisco, I now know, handles it quite well. I take the paper off the patties and then just plopped them in the hive. Mere seconds now.
Both colonies also got their daily dose of 1:1 sugar water. Mary Always sucks down the light 1:2 syrup in a few hours. Myrina takes all day. So I give them both 1:1 now. They take it at the same rate. I don't know why Mary took the 1:2 faster. Maybe it has something to do with her bees being older in make-up. More older foraging bees less younger hive bees. I don't know.
No comments:
Post a Comment