🐝💗Our Backyard Beekeeping Journey!💗🐝

[drstratton]

Hate the little SOBs!

Yeah, they are so nasty.

 

[drstratton]

Yesterday you said the colony has open brood, so there was a queen in there less than 2 weeks ago. No such thing as "older brood" it's all capped by 8 days after the egg is laid. If in that time a virgin queen emerged, she will kill her mother and go on mating flights. Bees won't go laying worker with open brood. If you try and combine now before the new queen has completed mating flights, she may kill the queen you combined with. Then you could be left with 2 queen less colonies. I would wait until the weekend.

It had larvae that was about 7 days old. The only large cell that I saw was this one. I touched it with my hive tool, that is the rough spot you see on it. Hopefully we will have a new queen, but I didn't see any other possible queen cells. I didn't see this cell on our last inspection, but I didn't pull all of the frames out, because I didn't want to take a chance of killing our queen. I saw eggs, larvae, capped brood and lots of bees. I will trust your advice and we will wait until the weekend. Thank you!

My youngest queen, only 3 1/2 weeks old and has 3 frames of open winter brood already.
View attachment 4213929

She's beautiful and looks like she's laying a strong pattern.

 

[R2elk]

Noticed the bees busy in the oak trees.

They are working the oak galls caused by the oak gall wasps.

 

[drstratton]

Noticed the bees busy in the oak trees.
View attachment 4214444View attachment 4214445
They are working the oak galls caused by the oak gall wasps.

What do they take from those?

 

[R2elk]

What do they take from those?

I have no idea.

 

[drstratton]

What do they take from those?

I decided to quit being lazy and look it up. They are collecting honeydew sap. They can make honey out of it.

 

[5Australorpasaures]

Forgot I caught a video of a varroa mite crawling on the white board, after I removed it from the hive.

For your viewing pleasure...lol

Creepy, just like a tick...

What do they take from those?

Here in Jersey in the spring, Oaks just put out pollen for the rearing of brood. No nectar at all on them. Nectar comes from the Holly trees that run along the edge of the swamp, and wild Huckleberry.

 

[5Australorpasaures]

Since I will be selling honey I broke down and ordered a refractometer. Can't rely on the fingertip and taste method anymore. Also had to order more Mason widemouth plastic lids. I don't know what I did with all my feeder lids. I'm sure I'll find them now since I ordered more.

 

[drstratton]

Since I will be selling honey I broke down and ordered a refractometer. Can't rely on the fingertip and taste method anymore. Also had to order more Mason widemouth plastic lids. I don't know what I did with all my feeder lids. I'm sure I'll find them now since I ordered more.

That's always the way it works...lol