- Thread starter
- #41
soarwitheagles
True BYH Addict
Babs,
We do not do the sugar roll for mite counts. Another method is called the alcohol method. It too is very accurate. Here, we simply monitor the mite drop count our our sticky bottom boards. Presently, we have not even one mite showing up...so our bees are doing well.
We have begun the Nicot queen rearing system a couple of weeks ago. It is a bit time consuming and also requires diligent inspections, some times on a daily basis. Presently, two of our strongest queens are in the Nicot egg box, laying eggs like crazy. We will wait 1-2 more days before transferring them into the queen cell builder hive. Then, 21 days before we have hundreds of queens and begin the process of making up the nucs...
Babs, presently it appears as if we will not have NUCS available until mid April. So sorry.
We have four hives that are incredibly aggressive in regards to bring in the honey, building comb, and laying eggs. One queen is consistently laying approximately 2,000 eggs per day. Never seen hives grow this fast ever. Within one week, we had to install the second super and that too is nearly full. Third super went on this weekend.
One hive was a bit too "hot" for our liking. But it went back to normal within a couple of days. We believe a mouse at night was riling them up.
At this rate, we will continue to place a new super on every 7-10 days.
I have eaten more honey and pollen and comb in the last week than I have in the last 10 years...feel like Winnie the Pooh! Now hoping my tummy does not look like Winnie the Pooh!
My wife found, caught and marked every queen from every hive in a matter of minutes...I am still shocked...even the master beekeepers that have visited us struggled finding the queens. In the past, I have looked for over 30 minutes on one hive and still did not find the queen! My wife has a gift I suppose.
Swarm Update:
Really disappointing. I was counting on having caught 5-10 hives before April. We are still batting 0.00%. Rain may have something to do with this...but, I discovered another reason...
Stupid yellow jackets invading every empty hive and every swarm trap, nearly every three days. They will post one or two guards at the entrance, then the others will begin building their paper nest inside. Really frustrating. I have to climb up and remove every trap, open it up, kill the wasps, then re-bait. This fall I will go out of my way to find every wasp nest I can and destroy them.
Posting a pic of our newest swarm trap...
Good day to all!
We do not do the sugar roll for mite counts. Another method is called the alcohol method. It too is very accurate. Here, we simply monitor the mite drop count our our sticky bottom boards. Presently, we have not even one mite showing up...so our bees are doing well.
We have begun the Nicot queen rearing system a couple of weeks ago. It is a bit time consuming and also requires diligent inspections, some times on a daily basis. Presently, two of our strongest queens are in the Nicot egg box, laying eggs like crazy. We will wait 1-2 more days before transferring them into the queen cell builder hive. Then, 21 days before we have hundreds of queens and begin the process of making up the nucs...
Babs, presently it appears as if we will not have NUCS available until mid April. So sorry.
We have four hives that are incredibly aggressive in regards to bring in the honey, building comb, and laying eggs. One queen is consistently laying approximately 2,000 eggs per day. Never seen hives grow this fast ever. Within one week, we had to install the second super and that too is nearly full. Third super went on this weekend.
One hive was a bit too "hot" for our liking. But it went back to normal within a couple of days. We believe a mouse at night was riling them up.
At this rate, we will continue to place a new super on every 7-10 days.
I have eaten more honey and pollen and comb in the last week than I have in the last 10 years...feel like Winnie the Pooh! Now hoping my tummy does not look like Winnie the Pooh!
My wife found, caught and marked every queen from every hive in a matter of minutes...I am still shocked...even the master beekeepers that have visited us struggled finding the queens. In the past, I have looked for over 30 minutes on one hive and still did not find the queen! My wife has a gift I suppose.
Swarm Update:
Really disappointing. I was counting on having caught 5-10 hives before April. We are still batting 0.00%. Rain may have something to do with this...but, I discovered another reason...
Stupid yellow jackets invading every empty hive and every swarm trap, nearly every three days. They will post one or two guards at the entrance, then the others will begin building their paper nest inside. Really frustrating. I have to climb up and remove every trap, open it up, kill the wasps, then re-bait. This fall I will go out of my way to find every wasp nest I can and destroy them.
Posting a pic of our newest swarm trap...
Good day to all!
Last edited:
Maybe someone will move in and I won't have to do a split. It does have honey in it.
