The Honey Factory

[duluthralphie]

Plus, you have a boardman feeder on and patties which are mostly sugar. So, they have sugar, sugar, and more sugar. You should have for more woman because you're so sweet! Once they start backfilling the queen has nowhere to lay eggs and swarm prep will begin no matter how many bees are in the hive.

In the green drone frame or all over the frames? The brood frames you posted look really good.

I just added the green frames. It appears I did not get photos of them.

There were a couple frames that were about half drone cells.

I did move some of her brood upstairs to the new area. Hopefully, they have plenty of room.

I will add a super before too long. I guess I better spin some out.

 

[Apis mellifera]

I just added the green frames. It appears I did not get photos of them.

Don't forget to freeze them after the drone cells are capped.

There were a couple frames that were about half drone cells.

Unless they are scattered all over it sounds like they want to raise more drones. Sometimes it's the comb, if the comb was used before for drone rearing or damaged it will always be used for drones. They won't make the cells smaller, or at least in my experience they won't. Damaged comb in this photo the bees sometimes resize to drone cells.

 

[Cebarmlds]

I don’t know if this is an interest to any of you but I’m posting it here at any rate.

Death of Honey Bees From Ethanol Plant Prompts Call for Focus on Chemical Overloading • Children's Health Defense

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

I'm from Iowa and they promote ethanol big time. Not me personally.
I think that they should do more to make fuel from sources that aren't needed for everything else. Corn farmers are greedy. Our neighbors are all corn farmers, they buy new million dollar combines every 5 years, new pickup trucks every year and have houses like mansions. They own most of the land in the county, yet the sneak onto our 80 acres to hunt because they tore out all of the wildlife areas to plant corn in every square inch of their thousands of acres.
I'm done b*tch*n' now.

 

[shawluvsbirds]

You must be rich and super good looking to attract all those women.

Is good looking a necessity if he's rich?

 

[jerryse]

I worked my hives . New queen is laying a good pattern and some of her brood has hatched . Did not see her . 2 hives had capped and uncapped swarm cells . Squished those . Added supers to those 2 .

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

Is good looking a necessity if he's rich?

A paper bag will do I suppose...

 

[Apis mellifera]

2 hives had capped and uncapped swarm cells . Squished those .

They may have swarmed already if they had capped swarm cells. If you dont see any eggs by 6/12 you can add eggs from your other hive so they dont go laying worker on you.

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

I checked the Long Hive today.
I took out all the empty feeders.
I saw 3 hive beetles and smashed them and put in a beetle blaster.
There was capped worker brood, larva and eggs. The queen was on the last frame I checked. Not a ton of bees in the hive but it was nice and sunny so hopefully they were out foraging.
It's been 2 1/2 weeks since I hived them and one of those weeks it was cold and rainy.
Last minute picture before putting everything back together and shutting the hive.

 

[karenerwin]

My bee hive is doing great {as long as the queen is still there }.
I had just hived them 2 days before we left town and had given them almost 10 frames of already drawn comb. I was able to check on them for the first time the day after we got home {11 days after they went in}.
They were busting at the seems! I only looked at 5 frames but thought I saw a queen cell on one frame. I added another deep and moved a frame of brood and bees up top. So today {2 days later} I was able to get back in the hive and look through all 20 frames. It took me almost 2 hours.
I never did find the queen but that didn't worry me because I'm still very new at this { had bees 2 summers ago, but they didn't make it through the first winter}. I found a total of 6 swarm cells {at least that's what I think they were}. I think some were capped and some were uncapped. I got rid of all of them. There is a lot of capped brood as well as capped and uncapped honey. Not a lot of pollen. I did see larva at different stages. My eyes aren't good enough to see the eggs. Two years ago I took pictures of "open cells" and then came in and blew them up on my computer to be able to see the eggs. I didn't take any pictures like that today because I didn't want to take off my gloves.
Anyway, now I'm a bit worried that I may have gotten rid of a queen in the making and that my queen swarmed already because I have read on a different bee site about other people in a similar situation and the other readers are telling them that if the swarm cells/queen cells are capped and there are 6 or more then the queen probably already swarmed. There sure seemed to be a LOT of bees still in the hive, especially considering that it was the middle of the day and it was gorgeous out. So, I'm hoping and praying I didn't just mess everything up.
If I can find this thread on my phone I will post the 2 pictures I did take. They are of the same frame and are showing very heavy capped brood pattern {unless I am wrong about what I think that is}.