The time has come for Little Miss to be a full hive. She has a box of bees, a box of honey, and a great laying queen. The bees fill both 5 frame boxes so she needs the expansion.
First i took out the honey frames from her top nuc box. They became frames 1, 2, 3, 9, &10 of the bottom 10 frame box. Then all the frames of the bottom nuc, the brood nest, filled the gap between 3 and 9 of the same 10 frame box. The result is the same brood nest packed with double the honey on the ends.
To fill the new second 10 frame box (Top box) i used filled or drawn frames from previous dead outs. In this case 6 frames filled with honey & pollen and 4 frames of empty but drawn wax. This gives the bees plenty of stores and room to lay. What would take them weeks to over a month to produce they have right now. Their energy can go towards brood yet requires less work from the field bees.
The new hive consists of:
Telescoping cover
Inner cover
10 frame medium
10 frame medium
Slated rack
Solid bottom board
No hive top feeder for them because; 1- The spring flow is strong and these girls are known not to take spring syrup; 2- They are not an over stressed package that just got shipped across country to be dumped somewhere strange. Other than the new equipment nothing has changed for them. They'll keep on taking nectar like they've been doing.
Ideally i can put on a 3rd box soon. As a hive of mediums all they need for over wintering is 3 boxes. If they can fill their 3rd box with brood before May i can add honey supers to the hive. Winter ran a month late in ending. So i don't know how that will affect the flow or whether these bees will have the time to produce surplus honey. I'm looking forward to favorable conditions.
Meanwhile, queen Miss is a pretty girl of moderate size with an all black thorax and non-striped, sepia abdomen. We are in our first week of warm weather yet she already has several frames of brood from side to side and a handful of scattered Drone cells. She'll be marked when i feel assured i can make more queens. Maybe in a month.
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| The yellow full nuc next to the white new equipment |
To fill the new second 10 frame box (Top box) i used filled or drawn frames from previous dead outs. In this case 6 frames filled with honey & pollen and 4 frames of empty but drawn wax. This gives the bees plenty of stores and room to lay. What would take them weeks to over a month to produce they have right now. Their energy can go towards brood yet requires less work from the field bees.
 |
| New hive in place |
The new hive consists of:
Telescoping cover
Inner cover
10 frame medium
10 frame medium
Slated rack
Solid bottom board
No hive top feeder for them because; 1- The spring flow is strong and these girls are known not to take spring syrup; 2- They are not an over stressed package that just got shipped across country to be dumped somewhere strange. Other than the new equipment nothing has changed for them. They'll keep on taking nectar like they've been doing.
Ideally i can put on a 3rd box soon. As a hive of mediums all they need for over wintering is 3 boxes. If they can fill their 3rd box with brood before May i can add honey supers to the hive. Winter ran a month late in ending. So i don't know how that will affect the flow or whether these bees will have the time to produce surplus honey. I'm looking forward to favorable conditions.
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| Queen bee from Little Miss |
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2 comments:
My husband and I lived in Riner, V
a. for 12 years and had 9stands of bees that were very productive. My husband sold his honey at work and everyone who tasted it said it was the best honey they had tasted. We now live in a north central Florida town with plenty of bee keepers but the honey thst comes grom here is not even close to the great honey we got from our bees in Virginia.
Hi Vivian,
Homemade is always the best in my opinion. Orange & Tupelo honey are good but not as good as local wildflower honey.
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