A BEE thread....for those interested in beekeeping.

[PotterWatch]

Quote:
I captured these bees as a swarm on April 9th so they have been in that hive box for almost ten weeks. I put on the second box around three weeks ago because they had just about filled seven of the ten frames in the bottom box and I was going to be gone for a couple weeks. I didn't want them to run out of room and start thinking about swarming while I was gone so I went ahead and put the second box on a bit early. So far, I am really happy with these bees. Since it is my first hive, I have no idea how much they should have accomplished by this point, but they seem pretty industrious to me!

 

[PotterWatch]

Quote:
My husband took those pictures so I'm not sure how he managed to get nice clear shots. Frankly, the pictures he takes usually aren't that great

. He was standing about 15ft away from me while he took those pictures, so the zoom must have done its job!

 

[ChksontheRun]

Are those top bar hives? I use foundation but it doesn't look like you did. The comb looks wonderful. From what I hear, at least here in Virginia, you need to have 2 deep boxes of drawn comb for the bees to store honey for the winter. (8 -9 frames in each box is probably good) It takes that many frames of drawn comb to store enough honey for the winter.

The pics are wonderful. Your queen is doing a lovely job of laying eggs too. Great brood pattern.

 

[PotterWatch]

No, it's a langstroth hive. The comb look the way it does because I only use little strips of material to tell them where to start building thier comb and the rest of it is all natural. They generally start in the middle of a frame and work down and out making the comb the same shape you would find in a top bar hive until they have filled the whole frame. In the bottom box, I used strips of wax foundation, but it's hard to get it to stay in place and I had some fall out from the weight of the comb the bees were building on it. In the top box I glued paint stirrers into the groove where the foundation goes. You can see some of the paint stirrer where they haven't gotten any comb on yet in the second picture.

 

[rubyrogue]

I had a gentleman ask if he coukd put his hive in my field...Well he ended up getting deployed but now I am very interested in getting into beekeeping. Even though I live in a smaller city there happens to be a local store that sells all the equipment, bees, ect. I am looking at all the prices and am wondering how they compare? Could you all look at the site and tell me?
http://tubbsberryfarm.com/Beekeeping.htm

There are a couple different pages but you have to go back and forth through them by clicking "honey" or "bees and beekeeping" on the left side. They sell 3lb packages but they are sold out for the year

 

[SurprisingWoman]

I think my girls are building a queen cell. Would the best thing be to get a pic and post it?

How can I tell if they are going to or have already swarmed?

Ugh, I did not need this right now.

Any advice?

 

[ChksontheRun]

Rubyrogue, please check out MannLake and Dadant for supplies. Remember to factor in shipping as these may not be local for you. Both of these companies are well know and reliable suppliers of beekeeping supplies.

SurprisingWoman, I know it is stressful and nerve wracking, but remember, there is only so much you can do as a beekeeper. There are many reasons a hive starts building queen cells. If they are in the middle of a frame--these may be supercedure cells that are built due to a failing queen.(Do a search on supercedure on the net to read more about that). If they are on the bottom of a frame, the hive may be preparing to swarm. All beekeepers experience swarms although one of our jobs is to try to prevent it. By the time they are building queen cells in preparation to swarm, it may be too late to prevent it. Some people say to remove the queen cells on the bottom of the frame, but when we did that, they swarmed anyway, and we were left with a queenless colony. (We bought a new one to replace her.)

Do you have a mentor or someone else you know that keeps bees near you that could come and help you sort it all out?

Hang in there. This is part of the deal and part of the excitement and challenge.

These little ladies do have a mind of their own!

 

[sgtmom52]

Quote:
It would be good if you could post a picture. Where is the cell located on the frame? Is it a queen cup or a full queen cell. The bees often have queen cups ~ just in case. A queen cell does not always mean they are going to swarm ~ it could be a supercedure cell. It is possible that your queen is not working up to standard and they are thinking about replacing her.

 

[cheraboo]

We found two supercedure cells today. We didn't check all of the frames in the bottom hive body so I don't know if there are more. Should we check things again in a few days?



We were getting eaten by mosquitos so we didn't examine as thoroughly as I would've liked. Jacob quickly looked over the frames he did pull and said he didn't see any larva. I'm guessing we are queenless

I don't want to hurt the bees but the mosquitos are just horrible everywhere in our yard. Is it ok to spray on an insect repellant before going out to the hive?

 

[ChksontheRun]

Those look like supercedure cells. The hive is trying to replace their queen.