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Making queens!

4/26/2015

   All of those nucs are now filled with bees. 20 + nucs made up today after splitting 6 hives down and using queen cells produced using the cell punch method.
   I made up 24 cells using the method outlined under the Queens section. 18 of those cells were accepted and capped when I pulled the bar this morning. the 6 queens in the full sized hives were last years queens, so they are one year old overwintered queens. The rest of the nucs recieved a queen cell.
   It is looking like I may be going to OK to help a friend deal with 400 hives he has on Canola next week, so I will have to wait to get back to see how many of these queens mate successfully and return.
   See Yall in May!
   Keep your bees happy!

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Swarm Boxes ready!

4/2/2015

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   March was a month of surprises, and wildly fluctuating temps. It looks like we are about two to three weeks ahead of last year already.   I decided to check my hives.. we havent had much rain, and its been below freezing on numerous occasions at night.. so I was worried the sugar reserves would be low.
   Much to my delight, the bees not only HAVE nectar and pollen being packed away, they are making COMB like little mad women!
   There are a plethora of Drone cells as well, so in about two weeks I will be making queens. That also means, its time to get the Swarm boxes prepared!

Here we have the winter side of the inner cover. Mine are still DOWN because my hives still had sugar cakes on the top bars.. Most of them were in one stage or another of filling that space with new comb. Also to my delight, they had some nectar and honey in that new comb, so I cut a big piece of it out to munch on later. In the meantime, I removed the sugar cakes, reversed SOME boxes, and then I installed 40 Drawn supers, and 18 UN drawn supers. The bees are already filling them.. with what? Pussywillow and Maple are a couple sources. So I gave them a bit of advantage by putting their supers on... Then I went to collect my bounty for a snack of honey filled comb.. and guess what I found instead? SOMEONE was already eating it!!!

Yeah.. how do you get mad?   That is Knightro the bee dog. He is part lab and part Spaniel. Hoping he will be a good farm guard, a good bird dog, and an excellent companion when running to my outyards. Only time will tell!

   SO! If you have not gotten into your hives yet, it is TIME, and in fact it is past time. Get out there and get those bees ready for spring!
   Keep your bees Happy!
   Scott

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Making queens!

Swarm Boxes ready!

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