Hive inspection and box reversal

[Happy Chooks]

Sounds like they are doing well! We have been about the same temps, a little cooler in the daytime than you. But the wind has been strong! Today is cool, but calm winds. Of course, I'll be gone all day. Hopefully tomorrow will be the same and I can get into my hive.


On a positive note, it appears the blackberries are going to do really well this year! They are blooming like crazy! Last year, with our bad drought, they were awful. I didn't even bother picking them.

 

[Maggiesdad]

Lookin' good, ladies!

 

[Maggiesdad]

The more I look at that pic, the more I think that's a boatload of pollen in that comb... I need to study my Crowder diagrams.

 

[Happy Chooks]

That is what I love about taking pictures of my hive, I can go back and study them after I'm done.

 

[Happy Chooks]

My split is done. I hope I did it right. This was before I started, but after I pulled off the honey super. The plastic frames are from my original nuc that I lost it's first winter.

I got the entrance reducer on the new hive. Added 4 frames of bees/brood and made sure I had fresh eggs on a frame and moved them to the new hive. Surprisingly, there wasn't much stores in the hive. (lots of brood though) They must be using it all to increase the population. They have honey in the super that they can use, if needed.

I was not able to spot the queen, so I'm not positive which hive she is in. Both hives have eggs, so it shouldn't matter. I think she is in the main hive, because when I was working, all of a sudden the bees from the outer frame starting pouring into the hive on the side of the wall. There was still plenty of room, so I probably didn't need to split this hive yet, but oh well. As far as I could see, all queen cups were empty. (but it's really hard to see eggs through the veil, especially on a cloudy day here)

I added empty frames to the hive, put the super back on, and closed it up. I got the frames arranged in the new hive, and put the inner cover on, then the feeder in a super box, then the outer cover and closed it up. Now I guess I need to stay out of it for 4 weeks, so they can raise their queen and have her take her mating flight.

This was after I pulled the frames.

Fingers crossed for a successful split!

 

[Maggiesdad]

So many bees! Good luck!

 

[Happy Chooks]

Crap, I just went out to sit by the hive and watch them. I saw that a bee was caught in a spider web, so stupid me went to free her. Put her on the landing board and someone nailed me on the eyelid. Hurts like heck too! I had to get my husband to get the stinger out because I couldn't see which direction it was in.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

.OUCH! What's that old saying? "No good deed goes unpunished."

 

[Latestarter]

CONGRATS!! Now the real fun (nail biting anticipation) starts! Your split looks better populated than my package after being installed for 2 weeks! Nice! AND, it already has capped brood, pollen and maybe some honey!

Please do NOT wait 4 weeks!!!

You need to go back and check BOTH hives in "about a week". That will tell you which hive has the queen (there will be new eggs/larva), and which hive does not. You NEED to check the hive that doesn't have the queen to make sure they have built a (several potentially) Queen cell(s) and are raising a new queen. If they aren't, then you (may) want/need to swap out a frame of new eggs/larva from the hive that DID keep the queen, or, buy a queen and place her in her cage between the frames.

You don't want to wait a month to find out that one split was NOT successful for whatever reason! Once you have laying workers, you'll have no choice but to re-combine that split back with the original hive. They'll kill any new queen you try to install at that point. The hive without the queen will know they are queen-less and within 24 hours should start feeding a new queen, so when you re-investigate that hive in "about a week", the egg or lava they have chosen should already be capped.

Once/when/If you see/find queen cells, then you'll want to go back again in "about a week" (9 days incubation after capping) and see if a queen has successfully hatched. If so, then you can do the happy dance! Then you need to go back and check one more time in "about a week" to see if there are now eggs in the brood cells, indicating that the queen has made her mating flight and has gotten down to business! After she hatches, she'll need about 3-5 days to "flesh out" and kill any other queens that may hatch. Then she'll need about 3-5 days doing mating flights.

Man, I might be as excited about this as you are

Edit to say sorry you went through all that without a sting, and then got stung trying to save one of the girls from certain death...

 

[Happy Chooks]

Thanks for sharing latestarter. I just don't want to damage any queen cells. I really do appreciate you sharing your thoughts.

I don't have an active beekeeping association, so most of my learning is hands on or reading.