May 05

<< May 2005 >>
Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Installed new queens in #1 and a new nuc.						Sholan Farm's Apple Blossom Festival.
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
Happy Mother's Day.						Installed new queens in #1 and a new nuc.
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
						Installed new queens in #1 and a new nuc. Started Observation Hive.
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
				Queen Released in Observation hive.
29	30	31

The weather is not cooperating. More Rain on Saturday. The queens had arrived and I picked them up at the Leominster Post office. The forecast for today was that it would be clearing in the AM and be warm for the afternoon. Early this afternoon, I scooted up to the Farm to install the queens in #1 and the new nuc I made up. I also needed to add the second stories onto hives 3 and 5. #1 was not happy to see me. The queen cells were torn out and I did not see a new queen in the hive, but she still may have been there. Still I hold out hope for the new queen I introduced. The nuc was still in good shape, they have plenty of food and the brood is all capped over. They were attempting to make new queens, I saw 3 superceedure cells built up. The new queen here will be released soon and will dispatch of the developing queens.

More rain. 4th weekend in a row. The apple blossoms still have not popped. They are at least a week behind last year. Due to my travel schedule last week, I have not seen if the queens have been released. I don't want to do it tomorrow, the weather does not look all that good and it's mother's day. Today was my daughter's first communion.

A lunchtime visit to the hives shows that the queens that I introduced have not been accepted. #1 had no sign of a queen and the nuc was the same as well. This is discouraging. One of the developing queens must have been freed and had my newly purchased queens killed. I will have to keep an eye on things on this hive. I have placed an order for 3 carniolan queens from Betterbee. I will be able to give #1 and the nuc a queen and start up my observation hive with a frame of bees and brood lifted from one of these hives.

I stared a new colony by taking a frame of bees and brood from the strong #2 hive and put it in my observation hive. I also gave them a new queen in the observation hive. The observation hive is now up and running in my basement office. The queen is in a small cage with some attendants that will feed her and protect her. The entrance of the cage is sealed with sugar candy. The bees will eat the candy and free the queen from the cage. The bees in the colony are Italian, they are golden with black stripes. The queen is carniolan, she is almost all black. So the queen is a different race of bee than the colony. Queen acceptance can be a tricky thing - if something goes wrong -the bees seem to blame the queen for it. Too much rain- blame the queen and kill her. If the hive is opened- they blame the queen and kill her. I have placed a blanket over the hive so that they can work in total darkness to release her. I will check for a few seconds each day to see if they are making progress on her release.

Observation Hive queen released! Good news! She has been accepted. Let's hope she is laying eggs soon. Hive #1 has an active queen in it too. So either the queen I have placed there is laying of the virgin queen that they raised on their own mated and is now their sovereign. I will need to go back in a few days to see what happens.