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Spring nucing in east Texas

8K views 20 replies 14 participants last post by  Kingfisher Apiaries 
#1 ·
#2 · (Edited)
One of the photos is labeled as "Portable incubator", and there is a small white plastic box in the hive. Assuming that is the "incubator", is it really just a cage that protects the cells from being damaged, or is there actually some form of artificial heat applied by (or to) the plastic box?

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#8 ·
We took a regular hive body and lined it with 1/4" foam insulation and fastened it onto a drip pan with the "guts" of an incubator mounted in it. It's powered by one of those cheap power inverters that you plug into the 12 volt automotive plug in. A real budget setup that does a real nice job and capable of hauling up to 700 cells if needed. It does double duty to warm glass Pyrex containers that we use inside of a small foam cooler to carry from hive to hive if the temps are cool. The "plastic box" you see is just a thermometer.
 
#11 ·
Yeah we are seeing some of that. We typically see a wide variation in the "almond bees" and this year is no different. As a whole they came back averaging almost exactly the same weight as they went out there, with honey/feed weight being replaced by bee weight. A hive of similar size left in Texas always does much better than the one shipped out to the almonds. Nothing new there. In my mind there is some exposure out there that seems to set some hives back more than others. On the plus side, though, we always have plenty of brood and bees for us to work with and the bees recover very quickly here in east Texas.
 
#13 ·
A hive of similar size left in Texas always does much better than the one shipped out to the almonds. On the plus side, though, we always have plenty of brood and bees for us to work with and the bees recover very quickly here in east Texas.
The only other small plus that I can think of is 165 x 768. But that's just extra bingo change.:)
 
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