Comments for Mud Songs

Comment on Signs of a Queenless Hive? by Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 17 May 2012 10:47:26 +0000

Phil,

Give them a few days and pull the frame(s) with brood you installed and look at. For the time being if you do see some some queen cells leave them for the time being. As for a laying worker. If you had one already you would be seeing eggs by now. But you may have one just on the horison. Also if you are not working monday stick another frame of eggs/open/capped brood in. You need the smell of the brood to prevent that laying worker from taking hold.

Also, this early in the season I would not worry about recombinding. I would contine to steal a frame of brood from one colony each week until you have a laying queen. Whether they make their own queen or you take one of my grafts. In 3 – 4 weeks you should have a mated queen again. It is still early in the season. By the way, I grafted 12 cells yesteday. I intent to move them into the finisher on Friday so then I will know how successful I was in my grafting.

Comment on Signs of a Queenless Hive? by Emily Heath

Emily Heath — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:17:33 +0000

Good luck with the hive. It’s always tricky trying to work out what they’re up to, but I think you’ve done the right thing.

Comment on Checkerboarding with Fat Bee Man by Phillip

Phillip — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:00:53 +0000

I’m already following his tip about smoking the edge frames to get the queen moving to the middle of the hive.

I haven’t seen his video on how to light a smoker, though recently I switched to cedar mulch and it’s working great.

Comment on Comparing Hives by Phillip

Phillip — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:58:49 +0000

Nigel is most laid back cat I’ve ever seen, though he looks a little evil in this video (he’s squinting from the bright sun). If I have another pet, I think I’d like to call him Alan. Or Jim. (If it’s a boy animal.)

Comment on Comparing Hives by Tonia Moxley

Tonia Moxley — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:45:37 +0000

Your cat’s name is Nigel? Wonderful. I want to name a future dog Philbert.

Comment on Checkerboarding with Fat Bee Man by Tonia Moxley

Tonia Moxley — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:31:47 +0000

I LOVE Fatbeeman. Among several things, he schooled me in how to light a smoker, and more importantly, how to keep it lit.

Comment on A Semi-Gross Photo by Tonia Moxley

Tonia Moxley — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:16:08 +0000

You don’t get this with Kenyan Top Bar hives. I’m just sayin’. :-)

Comment on Signs of a Queenless Hive? by Tonia Moxley

Tonia Moxley — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:10:50 +0000

I have been battling this issue, too. I hived a swarm first week in April, and had to cut out some bad comb they were building. I just have chopped or pinched the queen, because two weeks ago I found the same thing you did — no brood and a really chill hive. Not much excitement.

So I robbed open brood from another hive, shook off all the bees and am hoping for the best. On Saturday, I’m doing a full inspection of all my hives (and doing a cut-out in another hive where a second swarm has cross-combed the crap of the frames. Eeesh.) I hope to see queen cells or evidence of emerging queens. If not, I’m going to combine the swarm with another hive.

Good luck to you, and to me!

Comment on Signs of a Queenless Hive? by Phillip

Phillip — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:54:13 +0000

I added the open brood frames. I’m not using Rite-Cell foundation anymore, even if it is deeper than regular foundation. It’s white. Trying to spot tiny little eggs through my veil is hard enough. Against a white background doesn’t help.

But anyway, it’s done. I replaced the pulled frames from the healthy hive with empty foundation. There’s brood in the hive, but not as much as I expected, at least not in the top box. Still, no worries.

Now we wait to see if they build some queen cells…

Comment on Hive Cam by Phillip

Phillip — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:17:32 +0000

The camera movement was faked (I would have made it smoother, too, but I was in a rush). I used a Pan & Scan feature in my video editor to do it.