Understudy.net/org Ok you have made it this far. You obviously must be bored and have nothing better to do with your life.

My Archives: January 2006

Friday, January 20, 2006

Well after paying mad money to have a cardboard box overnighted so I could transfer the bees I bought into a cardboard nuc box temporarily. I received the cardboard nuc box. This nuc box is a small bee holder and only holds five frames. A normal hive box will hold ten. I have a wooden nuc box coming ups ground. So it will be next week when I receive it. I needed to return the orginal bee box back tot he guy I bought it from. So when the cardboard nuc arrived I was very happy I had a place to transfer the bees to so i could give the orginal box back to it's owner.

I have been working way to much the past couple of days also. I have had about 2 hours of sleep each day for the past 4 days. And after dicovering the queen cell I was reall happy. Today I had a chance to just go and see my bees. I figured I would not really go into the hive and then I saw a damn hive beetle crawl out. ARGH!!!!!!!!!!! I cannot win. I take a peek inside and sure enought here are about 5 hive beetles crawling around. There also some larvae that are long. I suspect they are hive beetle larvae, they are very different from the fly maggots. The are longer and gray in color.

I didn't see the queen cell when I was cleaning out but I didn't look real hard and I didn't want to disturb to much. The hive I bought seems to be doing pretty well. They haven't started building on the new frame. I didn't expect them to, however there were no beetles in their hive.

Things I have learned:
I should have place the hive when I relocated it into a nuc box. The nuc box should have had four brood frames and one honey frame.
Constantly looking into my hive is probably not helping.
I need to stop working so much overtime, it is not worth it.

Posted by understudy @ 06:05 PM EST [Link]

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

My bees are bastion of confusion to their owner. I am almost certain they are doomed and I am going to do everything I can to rescue them and just as I am about to complete it. I discover I may not need to.

Basically my bee numbers were dropping like flies (bad joke there). I knew there was no queen from the last inspection. Okay let me say 99% certain there was no queen. So after my discussion with Leonard from the Palm Beach bee keepers group at the fair. I got some numbers of some people who might be able to get me a queen. I called most of them to no avail. Then when hope is diminishing to utter bleakness, I try again and got in contact with a honey grower in my area. He will be more than happy to sell me a mated queen and some brood cell. Uphoria is mine. Not exactly. He doesn't have a queen cage and I also wanted some brood cells to go with it. Well here is my issue. I am worried just stuffing the bees in there may not be the best for my orginal bees. I know they have no queen and I am worried the tow sets of workers in the hive wil rage holy war. He explains to me that if my hive is weak then I will not really have an issue. Replace some of the frames with no bees in my hive with the brood cell and all should be right with the world. I am willing to try. The best part is since he has bees on the frames . I will need to borrow his box because of this . He has no problem with that and is very cool about answering my silly questions.

I will put the bees in the frame tomorrow as it is getting dark and I have to pull a night shift for work and a morning shift. So I leave the other bees alone in their box and place it in my yard near mine. Worst case I figure while I am gone the strong hive I bought will move into my hive.

I come home from work and I am all set to go into my hive do a final check and throw in some frames. I do a complete look over for a queen. No queen and then just as I am about to put the frame back I see it. A section of hive that looks like a peanut sticking out of the hive. A queen cell, my decimate, demoralized, tiny group of bees is not done yet!

My bees want to thrive and damn if they are not going to! Great brain boy, you go and buy a queen and bees and brood and now can't put them in there. So now I need to grab a quicky Nuc box and relocate the group I bought and give the other guy his box back and see about managing two hives. Also as a fallback if my first hive dies out even with the queen. I can still use the second group of bees.

Posted by understudy @ 04:41 PM EST [Link]

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Today I went into the the bee hive to do an inspection. The results were less than stellar. It is almost certain that there is no queen. For the last three days the pupae have been tossed on the landing. I was hoping they would make new cells ready for eggs. I was hoping they had built a lot of new comb nest also.

Bees don't always do what you think they will. And unhappy bees do even less.

When I opened the hive I saw very little nest building. The last two frames were the only one covered with any bees. Then things got worse. The last two frames were almost completly uncapped. There were no signs of eggs in the cells. After lifting out the last two frames I saw a pile of fly maggots. There were a lot of flies in the box but I didn't think anything of it. I am thinking a lot about it now.

The bee count seems greatly diminished. I am bummed because it looks like the hive will pass away or become a drone hive. I went back to the South Florida Fair.

Well this time at the fair I actually got to meet a hobby beekeeper with a bit of knowledge. We discussed my issue and without a queen the hive is on it's way out. My problem is that most of the people selling queens are up north and don't sell until spring. The one person I tried to contact in Florida was on vacation for a week. Well Leonard the hobby beekeeper I met at the fair has passed along a couple of numbers and some information that may be helpful and Monday I will be trying to get in contact with some people. I will try to get a queen and additional brood nest.

I hope I can remedy this.

You can see the pictures at http://www.understudy.net/images/inspection/index.html

Posted by understudy @ 09:28 PM EST [Link]

Yesterday was cold I think the high was like 60F/15C the bes didn't go out early because it was so cold. Then when it started to et closer to the high temps, the wind started going. In some cases we had gusts that reached amost 30MPH/40KPH. So no reall bee flight yesterday. I really want to go into the hive today but it is cold currently it is a round 46F/8C. In south Florida that is damn cold. No comments from snowbirds about how it is -5 up where you live, that is why I don't live there.

I am going to go into the hive today and do an inspection but I don't like doing it in the cold weather. All those bees huddle up nice and warm and here I come ripping the roof off the house. I will try to take some photos so you can see what it looks like. No promises though.

I received my second deep hive box and ten frames. I spent the evening assembling it. The hive box is ready to go now. Hopefully I can use this to avoid a swarm issue. I am probably going to order another one next week. I think that mann lake is going to have my credit card number on file for a while. I need to cut and build these on my own. That takes time which I don't seem to have a lot of.

Alright I am off to see if I can do this without getting stung.

Posted by understudy @ 09:50 AM EST [Link]

[Archive Index] [Main Index]