Ravenseye
06-30-2007, 01:21 PM
I checked my two hives today.
The first was one that had been queenless for some time. I had been feeding it some frames from my second, smaller hive that was a split from this one. The hive consists of two deep bodies and two mediums on top. The first medium was half full of capped honey and the top one was just foundation about ten days ago. Due to the queenless state, the bottom deeps that make up the hive body had been relatively empty except for some honey and a lot of pollen. When I took the inner cover off today, I noticed right away that the top medium was all drawn and, upon inspection, saw that it was half full of honey! I was happy. I decided to pull the top medium just to check on things directly below. When I twisted the mediums apart and pulled the top, I broke open a lot of drone brood with quite a few mites. So, now I knew that I had a queen! I was even happier. I left the rest of the hive alone and tossed a third medium on top, hoping for more honey...although it looks like this hot weather may have slowed things down a bit.
The second, smaller hive (single deep body) had been donating frames of brood to the larger hive for a few weeks. Their queen is a wall to wall layer and I really appreciate her efforts. She saved my big hive. When I opened the hive up, I noticed right away that it was honey bound. It went from 4 frames of foundation (the rest being brood area that I was constantly messing with) to brood and honey in 10 days! I tossed another deep body on that hive and closed her up.
Questions. On the large hive, I found drone brood between the upper two mediums. I didn't pull every frame from one of the mdiums but on the few I did pull I found only honey. Is it safe to assume that the queen just went upstairs to lay some drone eggs and that she's staying down below for the rest of the brood? I really don't want to be harvesting honey in the future only to find the honey mixed with brood. I can check next week since, based on the mites that I saw I figure it's time to start sugar treatments. Should I consider locating the queen, getting her into the bottom bodies and putting an excluder in? I was hoping to avoid an excluder.
On the small hive, will the bees and the queen move right up into the new body from the honey bound lower deep or should I put a few frames of brood in there to get things going? If they keep this up, I might even get honey from that hive this year as well.
Thanks in advance.......today was a good one compared to the last few "oh my goodness what am I going to do without a queen" weeks!
The first was one that had been queenless for some time. I had been feeding it some frames from my second, smaller hive that was a split from this one. The hive consists of two deep bodies and two mediums on top. The first medium was half full of capped honey and the top one was just foundation about ten days ago. Due to the queenless state, the bottom deeps that make up the hive body had been relatively empty except for some honey and a lot of pollen. When I took the inner cover off today, I noticed right away that the top medium was all drawn and, upon inspection, saw that it was half full of honey! I was happy. I decided to pull the top medium just to check on things directly below. When I twisted the mediums apart and pulled the top, I broke open a lot of drone brood with quite a few mites. So, now I knew that I had a queen! I was even happier. I left the rest of the hive alone and tossed a third medium on top, hoping for more honey...although it looks like this hot weather may have slowed things down a bit.
The second, smaller hive (single deep body) had been donating frames of brood to the larger hive for a few weeks. Their queen is a wall to wall layer and I really appreciate her efforts. She saved my big hive. When I opened the hive up, I noticed right away that it was honey bound. It went from 4 frames of foundation (the rest being brood area that I was constantly messing with) to brood and honey in 10 days! I tossed another deep body on that hive and closed her up.
Questions. On the large hive, I found drone brood between the upper two mediums. I didn't pull every frame from one of the mdiums but on the few I did pull I found only honey. Is it safe to assume that the queen just went upstairs to lay some drone eggs and that she's staying down below for the rest of the brood? I really don't want to be harvesting honey in the future only to find the honey mixed with brood. I can check next week since, based on the mites that I saw I figure it's time to start sugar treatments. Should I consider locating the queen, getting her into the bottom bodies and putting an excluder in? I was hoping to avoid an excluder.
On the small hive, will the bees and the queen move right up into the new body from the honey bound lower deep or should I put a few frames of brood in there to get things going? If they keep this up, I might even get honey from that hive this year as well.
Thanks in advance.......today was a good one compared to the last few "oh my goodness what am I going to do without a queen" weeks!