The Honey Factory

[R2elk]

Not the best pic... just a snap shot from the phone... but this red bird is a ‘summer tanager’ and he and his lady friend have been eating bees all morning ....

Not a huge issue, but I ended up splitting the hive that swarmed twice, because I found queen cells in two of the boxes and figured why not... so I now have three hives here at the house... the original queen with her swarm, and two others that will raise new queens...

the new queens will need to fly off, do grownup bee stuff with one or more boy bees, and then fly back to their hives to take their bee throne...

I just hope they can make it past the red feathered dragon coming and going... if not I guess I’ll be buying a new queen or two
View attachment 2124026

The nemesis here is the Western Kingbird which is adept at taking insects in flight.

 

[OhZark Biddies]

If a queen is not raised or she gets eaten by that red bird, then I have a can buy a bred queen in a queen cage and place her in the hive, just as would be done with a ‘package of bees”

 

[Kusanar]

I’ll try not to flub this up too bad, but it’s more or less like this...

basically the hive understands it is queenless or soon to be queenless in the case of them preparing to swarm... and so they raise some new queen cells from eggs the queen has laid....

They feed the baby bees in those cells ‘royal jelly’ that has magic queen making ingredients, and they tell these babies they are better than other bees, and that other bees will be lucky to know them...

usually the first of these princesses to hatch then seeks out the other princesses and snuffs them out before they hatch, using a tire iron or other blunt instrument..

or if one or more has already hatched they fight it out like jealous sorority girls until only one is left buzzing...

then this princess bee leaves the hive and flies to a ‘drone congregation area’ and carouses with male bees called drones...

after a lot of crazy x-rated bee action, the queen has all the baby bee batter she needs for a lifetime of baby bee making and decides she’s tired of the party life...

So then she flys back home (hopefully) where the rest of the bees worship her and take care of her while she lays eggs and watches Oprah for the rest of here life...

there are a few variations of how this all happens based on events that can happen to a hive, etc.., but that’s the basic idea

Lol, I love the description. I was wondering more of if you catch them before the hive swarms how you settle her in her new hive. It may have been someone on FB not here but they found I believe 3 new queens in a hive and started up new hives with each of them, leaving the original in place.

It is my understanding that in the normal order of things, if the hive gets too large, then the old queen takes part of her hive with her and leaves which leaves the princesses to inherit the rest of the workers and the existing hive, so to be able to leave the existing queen in place seems like you would need to do some odd stuff to get everyone settled where they "belong" according to the humans.

I could be wrong though.

 

[OhZark Biddies]

Lol, I love the description. I was wondering more of if you catch them before the hive swarms how you settle her in her new hive. It may have been someone on FB not here but they found I believe 3 new queens in a hive and started up new hives with each of them, leaving the original in place.

It is my understanding that in the normal order of things, if the hive gets too large, then the old queen takes part of her hive with her and leaves which leaves the princesses to inherit the rest of the workers and the existing hive, so to be able to leave the existing queen in place seems like you would need to do some odd stuff to get everyone settled where they "belong" according to the humans.

I could be wrong though.

Yeah there are a few variations... you can cut the queen cells out, and graft them to a frame and let a nuc raise the new queen...

or take the frame with the queen cells and framed of brood bees and honey and create a nuc to raise a queen, etc...

 

[OhZark Biddies]

Lol, I love the description. I was wondering more of if you catch them before the hive swarms how you settle her in her new hive. It may have been someone on FB not here but they found I believe 3 new queens in a hive and started up new hives with each of them, leaving the original in place.

It is my understanding that in the normal order of things, if the hive gets too large, then the old queen takes part of her hive with her and leaves which leaves the princesses to inherit the rest of the workers and the existing hive, so to be able to leave the existing queen in place seems like you would need to do some odd stuff to get everyone settled where they "belong" according to the humans.

I could be wrong though.

some folks try to cut out and discard the queen cells to prevent swarming also... but the general idea is that they’ll likely still swarm... and that it’s best to split the hive yourself at that point

 

[shawluvsbirds]

Not the best pic... just a snap shot from the phone... but this red bird is a ‘summer tanager’ and he and his lady friend have been eating bees all morning ....

Not a huge issue, but I ended up splitting the hive that swarmed twice, because I found queen cells in two of the boxes and figured why not... so I now have three hives here at the house... the original queen with her swarm, and two others that will raise new queens...

the new queens will need to fly off, do grownup bee stuff with one or more boy bees, and then fly back to their hives to take their bee throne...

I just hope they can make it past the red feathered dragon coming and going... if not I guess I’ll be buying a new queen or two
View attachment 2124026

You and Ralphie get all the best birds.

I’ll try not to flub this up too bad, but it’s more or less like this...

basically the hive understands it is queenless or soon to be queenless in the case of them preparing to swarm... and so they raise some new queen cells from eggs the queen has laid....

They feed the baby bees in those cells ‘royal jelly’ that has magic queen making ingredients, and they tell these babies they are better than other bees, and that other bees will be lucky to know them...

usually the first of these princesses to hatch then seeks out the other princesses and snuffs them out before they hatch, using a tire iron or other blunt instrument..

or if one or more has already hatched they fight it out like jealous sorority girls until only one is left buzzing...

then this princess bee leaves the hive and flies to a ‘drone congregation area’ and carouses with male bees called drones...

after a lot of crazy x-rated bee action, the queen has all the baby bee batter she needs for a lifetime of baby bee making and decides she’s tired of the party life...

So then she flys back home (hopefully) where the rest of the bees worship her and take care of her while she lays eggs and watches Oprah for the rest of here life...

there are a few variations of how this all happens based on events that can happen to a hive, etc.., but that’s the basic idea

Best thing I've read all day.

 

[OhZark Biddies]

You and Ralphie get all the best birds.

Best thing I've read all day.

Here, the birding has been pretty good lately...

But don’t get me started on silly reading suggestions again ...

 

[shawluvsbirds]

Here, the birding has been pretty good lately...

But don’t get me started on silly reading suggestions again ...


View attachment 2124206

We have our own silly names for backyard birds around here. The J calls that one "the upside down bird"

 

[duluthralphie]

I tried to copy R2elk’s photos with my bees. Did not work out so well.

This morning I was pretty excited to see gadzillions of bees in both my pear trees. The WW was outside, I took her to the pear trees to show her the bees.

She tried to get right up on them for some photos. They were not in a photogenic mood.

A couple of the girls took exception to our being there and let us know, after the couple bumps we left.

 

[shawluvsbirds]

If a queen is not raised or she gets eaten by that red bird, then I have a can buy a bred queen in a queen cage and place her in the hive, just as would be done with a ‘package of bees”

Interesting!