Sunday, May 29, 2011

Hive Inspection 5/29/11

Nuc #4
Partly Sunny
85°F

This is really a Queen check but with only 5 frames it becomes an inspection.  The big news is that the Virgin Queen is now laying.  WooHoo!  I didn't expect it but there were eggs in all the usable cells; which weren't many. 

Queen and Eggs
Compare this image of the queen to the one I took of her on the 25th, four days ago.  Big difference.  Although it looks like her wings may be damaged if you zoom in on the above image.  The bees in the nuc were acting a little better too.  They have drawn out more comb and are leaving & returning from the field.  This Nuc is from Myrina (we think) whose production is usually good.  These bees may now make it.

Whether the plastic nuc helped or not I don't know.   There are a few other unknowns to this colony:  How does a swarm end up with a Virgin Queen?  How come the bees are so listless?  Why won't they take syrup?  Much doesn't make sense.  Maybe I'll figure it out someday.  Untill then this is the bees home untill the woodenware is finished.

Corrugated Plastic Nuc
They drew out a bunch of weird comb on the Plasticell frame again.  I turned the frame around instead of removing the odd comb.  They can try to get it right on the undrawn side.  The 4th frame from the left is the Medium brood frame from what was Nuc #3 but is now Melissa.

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Also,
I checked the honey super on Myrina.  Surprisingly the bees had finally drawn out the majority of frames.  About Time!  So the super came out from between the 2 brood boxes and onto the top of the hive.  I added the Modified Queen Excluder as well.  I didn't see any eggs in the honey frames but I'll check again in a few days to be sure.

Honey At Last! 

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2 comments:

immwia said...

Lots of bee activity last week. Thanks for the update. I bet you can't wait for the bees to be just bees. LOL

Jones said...

I feed all of my swarms and Nuc's. But, as you note above, some do not take it at all - they seem content to simply go get Nectar. I am feeding only light syrup right now (2:1), so that might be the issue, but I remove the feeders once a starter refuses to take it for 2 weeks. I might drop it back on in June, when I go to a 1:1 mix and see if it matters (plus, they should have more bees working the hive.) Like you say, who knows why some bees will not take it (even when times are tough) while some take it even when a full flow is on.