From: Dina and Don Hess <ddhess@bellsouth.net>
Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2001 09:55:12 -0500
To: BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Basic info/advice request

Ok, on Friday I restocked the bee-chow in the hives. I went ahead and
looked at the frames in the Langstroth hive since they seemed to be
behaving fairly well (except for the one that stung me). They seemed to
be drawing out the foundation fairly well and I noticed a fair bit of
stored syrup/nectar as well as pollen/beebread. But I didn't notice any
eggs. How soon should I be seeing eggs (this was 5 days after
installation)? This is the hive that released its queen somewhat
differently than the others. The other hives had several workers on and
a few in the queen cage, but the Langstroth had workers packed into the
queen cage like sardines (this was tuesday). I pulled off the screen to
make sure that the queen wasn't among them and I didn't see her in
there. I guess it'd be a bit soon to have some larvae large enough to
be easily noticed. So, any advice on when and what to look for and how
long to give them before I order a new queen?

I didn't pull out the top-bars of the TBHs since I didn't want to
disturb the nice clusters, but looking in at the sides both seemed to be
building some decent comb. I could see that one was building them in
the proper orientation (though my cardboard "divider board" had follen
onto them so I had to carefully pull it off), and I moved the bars on
the other a couple millimeters to confirm they weren't stuck to each
other.

I'm probably going to go back later today to restock food and maybe look
at the Langstroth again (though I might use gloves and smoke this time,
especially if they're starting to look queenless). Also going to
replace the tarps on the TBH's with tin roofs.

Thanks,
Don