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Signs of spring - Fat Boys

3K views 19 replies 12 participants last post by  Ravenseye 
#1 ·
The Harleys are out today. Must be close to spring.:)
 
#5 ·
Dave...thanks for running it in. Actually, I fly out to FL tomorrow morning for a few days so at least I'll be able to smell spring in the air, even if it's not my air. Iddee...I'm anxious for your advice too!
 
#6 ·
I went to the beeyard to split yesterday. There was not a single drone or drone cell anywhere. If I had drones, mine would now be split. However, they are not. I hope to check a few neighbor's hives for drones Monday. If I find them, I will split mine anyway.
 
#7 ·
Had capped drones a week ago. Splits coming this weekend. One three deep hive bustin at the seams with bees, screaming to get out and make their mark on the world!

Weather looking good ahead of us for a while. Hopefully it stays that way this time around.

Ready or not here we go!!!! :):):)
 
#9 ·
More information boys.:)

Could you beeks who are splitting describe the kind of splits you are doing? Some of the newer folks might enjoy hearing how you're splitting... who's doing simple walk away splits, who is splitting and introducing a queen, who raised their own queen...

Also the timing. Iddee was kind enough to tell us that he's looking for drones before he splits. How far from your typical swarm season are you, and what's the flow like?

Just some stuff that will help others who may want to split but who've not done it before.
 
#10 ·
I like to look for drones and then start making plans for cells optimally timed to ripen (9 or 10 day cells which are sometimes referred to as 'hot') about two weeks later.

and what's this walk away? us texas hombres don't do no walkin' away.... rather ride than walk myself... and of course some time you need to run.
 
#13 ·
I have a feral colony in my house wall that swarmed 9 times in the last 3 years, I caught 7 but only have the one from last year. The weather is predicted to be 35 Sun 45 Mon so I want to start giving them a little honey throuh the entrance as they are in a single deep and I don't know how close to hungry they are. They're still humming.
I'm planning a cut-out for the house wall. It'll be Spring soon
 
#16 ·
Signs of spring-Fat Boys & DRONES

I checked 5 yards last Weekend 2-23-08. Capped drone cells in 40% of the hives of each yard. A few of the hives had capped drone cells week ending 2-16-08. Glad to see them.
I will set up my first starter of the season this weekend and do a preliminary graft.
I have been waiting for this all winter.
Frank
 
#17 ·
The "Fat Boys" snow tires here.Not planning splits here till April 22nd or later.I have queens comeing then hope it is good weather.It should be the Dandilion bloom then.There is 6 plus inches of snow right now.

My Offer of free snow is still open LOL
 
#18 ·
In the spirit of educating about splits, here's my experience from last year.

Made a split in April from a booming hive that wintered over real well. I pulled a couple of frames of mixed brood (all stages) and a few frames of pollen and honey and dropped them into a box. Added a queen from fat/beeman and shook in a bunch more bees. I had already isolated the queen in the original colony so I was certain that the split didn't include a second queen. A week or so later, I checked on the split and all was fine. The new queen had been released and I had new eggs being laid.

The real trouble was at the original hive. When I pulled the frames for the split I found queen cells. Without thinking, I scraped them off. Two weeks later, I found no more brood and believed that I was queenless. I couldn't find the queen that I had so easily found when I made my split and figured that maybe I had damaged her in some way. So, I ordered another queen and installed her. A week later, she was dead in her cage and I found eggs. Apparently, a new queen had emerged already when I discovered the queen cells. She made short order of my caged queen, probably as soon as I popped her in the hive. What I could have done was to place the frame with the queen cells into a nuc along with some bees and let them hatch out. It was early in the season and I could have easily had another colony. Live and learn.
 
#19 ·
ravenseye writes:
The real trouble was at the original hive. When I pulled the frames for the split I found queen cells. Without thinking, I scraped them off. Two weeks later, I found no more brood and believed that I was queenless. I couldn't find the queen that I had so easily found when I made my split and figured that maybe I had damaged her in some way. So, I ordered another queen and installed her. A week later, she was dead in her cage and I found eggs. Apparently, a new queen had emerged already when I discovered the queen cells. She made short order of my caged queen, probably as soon as I popped her in the hive. What I could have done was to place the frame with the queen cells into a nuc along with some bees and let them hatch out. It was early in the season and I could have easily had another colony. Live and learn.

tecumseh replies:
sometime its darned if you do and darned if you don't. I suspect raveneye is pointing to the fact that at this junction of the highway it is quite easy to make a wrong turn, since most of us don't have a road map (or gps) to deal with these kind of thing...

I would suggest to ravenseye that sometime you have to read the 'signs' along the road from time to time. In just about every 'queenless' hive (no matter what the size) that is preparing itself for the new queen (hopefully will soon be queen right) the workers will begin to polish areas of brood comb in the center of the brood nest. these area of comb will have a dull shine which is most evident when the comb is black. the other distinguishing characteristic is that the workers don't seem to wish to walk over this polished area (almost like they all got the memo not to walk on those nicely polished floors)... so you should see a polished area of comb and no bees surrounded by unpolished comb and lots of bees.

anyway...it is an excellent indicator that a new queen is only a day or so away from laying. in mini nuc especially I look for this 'sign' as a quick check at or about my penciled in 'queen should begin laying' date.
 
#20 ·
Thanks tecumseh. That's new knowledge for me. The day after I installed the new queen, and before I knew that she was a goner, I ran across a local beekeeper and I told him what I was doing. He flat out predicted what would eventually turn out to be true. Now, I can say that I've "been there and done that". Thanks for the polishing info. I offered my experience to keep stuff like this coming in.
 
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