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April 1, 2005 Called Bee Supply Co. in Southboro. They have the hive stands that I need for the new equipment that I want to place in Leominster. A trip there tomorrow is scheduled. We are expecting 2-5 inches of rain tomorrow. April 2, 2005 Painted new hives and picked up hive stands in Southboro, MA. April 8, 2005 I set the new hives at lunch today. I also took a few pictures of the existing hives and the bees that were coming and going. They were bringing in 3 different colors of pollen , light yellow, green and bright yellow. It is such a great sight to see the bees taking in pollen. This is a great sign that spring in here! April 10, 2005 - Big Day - Package Install Started the day by getting everything ready to install 3 new packages in 3
new hives at Sholan Farms. Step 1 was to boil 15 pints of water and
combine that with 15 lbs of sugar. After that was done, I had to
drive some 60 miles to South Deerfield, MA to pick up the bees at
Warm Colors Apiary.
Dan Conlon runs Warm Colors and he is a great
resource. When I showed up he had everything ready to go. He had just got
back from Georgia with about 500 packages for beekeepers in New York,
Vermont and western Massachusetts. I was there to pick up 9 packages of
bees. 3 of the packages were for me, 2 for John,
2 for Stewy and
2 more for some beekeepers they know. When I arrived back home, John
and Stewy were already there waiting for me. So we got everything on the truck
and picked up Sean and went to install the
packages at the farm. See pictures of the package install on their own
page. We installed quickly into hives 3
,4 and 5. The new hives had their entrance reducers on and the installed
the queen cages in the hole of the inner cover. This was John's idea, he
has done this a lot more than I have. Overall a beautiful day, 68 degrees when we installed the packages. April 15, 2005 I moved the bees and the queen that were in the observation hive to hive #2. I sprayed them down with a sugar syrup mix with a tiny bit of vanilla. I also sprayed all of the bees that were in hive #2. There was evidence of a laying worker. (There was only Drone comb and I could see eggs that were in the cells sideways). I took out two empty frames from hive #2 and inserted the two frames from the observation hive. This made for a good lunch trip to the orchard. I also needed to check on the packages that were installed to see if they had released their queen from the queen cage. Success. Overall, hive #3 and 5 looked very active ( a lot of take-offs and landings) . #4 was slow moving and did not have as many take offs and landings. All were bringing back pollen. April 24, 2005 Got back from a weeks vacation in Disney World and needed to check on the new packages that were installed. It has been two weeks and there was bound to be capped brood by now. I had some drawn frames, so the bees would not have to do as much to draw out the wax and the queens could begin laying right away. The weather was just at 62 degrees F just around 2:00 in the afternoon. The weather report from friends has said the week here was warm -in the 80s. That must have been good for the bees. It has now been 2 weeks since the packages were installed. I checked things out in this order: #2 - The queen and bees that were from the observation hive has been accepted by the new colony. I saw the queen - It is so easy to find her when she is marked. There were now two full frames of brood that that she had filled in a week. Good job little lady. #3 - There was a spire of burr comb coming up through the opening in the inner cover. The burr comb was about 4 inches above the inner cover. The inside of the inner cover was covered with burr comb that was filled with light liquid - could be honey or could be sugar syrup. There were many bees feasting on it. About 3 frames of brood and lots of pollen. I just wish the bees would use the wax to draw out the frames that were in the hive rather than use it to mess up with burr comb. I did not see the queen, but I did see a lot of eggs and larvae. The black frames are great for seeing the eggs in the cell. They just pop out against the black background. The eggs are about 1/4 the size of a grain of rice. Needs some more sugar syrup. #4 - Could have been better. The brood pattern here was broken up. There were two completely empty drawn frames between the frames of open and capped brood. Pretty strange. I'll post it to the forum. It also looked like there were some swarm cells being built at the bottom of the frames. I cut them out and will check again in a few days. This hive had a lot of sugar syrup in the feeder. This queen might be a dud. #5 - Looking good and strong. 3 frames of open and capped brood, lots of pollen and the frames were heavy. #1 - Lots of bees, definitely a strong hive. Opened it up and the brood pattern did not look good. A good brood pattern looks like the top of an crescent moon, with pollen and honey on the outside. This one had capped brood that looked like parenthesis ( ) with pollen and honey on the outside. The older brood that was in the middle had hatched out and the newer brood was still developing and would hatch later. But there was no eggs or larvae in the middle section of the frame. Next frame had the same pattern, and the one after that, too. The middle frames looked fuller but they did not have the show any larvae or eggs. The queen was gone. dead perhaps. Maybe she was squished by me during my last inspection. And then it was confirmed - supersedure cells. These cells are produced when the queen needs to be replaced. The workers create them and raise a new queen from the egg and fill the cell with royal jelly. Time to go. can't solve this problem now. Looks like another trip in a few days - pull the frames and make a nucleus. April 25th, 2005 Called Allen Bee Ranch in California to order two new queens. They should be here for the weekend. Need to make more sugar syrup.
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This site was last updated 02/05/07
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