First overwintered hive busting out during nice spring day
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I'm a total newb, so take this for what it's worth, I don't see many bees there. Are you sure that they're OK? Here's what mine did on a warm spring day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM0qpkTN7Q0
When I opened the top up, they boiled over. Almost every frame covered. . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM0qpkTN7Q0
When I opened the top up, they boiled over. Almost every frame covered. . .
NewbeeNnc - congratulations! Getting your hive through the winter is something to strut about. You could feed to give them a pick-up and help you sleep better.
c10250 - Looks great and strong. Those girls look ripe for propagation to splits or swarms.
Wish you guys a great season with loads of fun.:thumbsup:
c10250 - Looks great and strong. Those girls look ripe for propagation to splits or swarms.
Wish you guys a great season with loads of fun.:thumbsup:
Thanks guys. Hey "c", I was afraid they wouldn't even make it through this year. I lost one that had a huge cluster. However this one had some good winter traits in my opinion. They hardly ate through anything and we had a really bad winter for NC. I noticed this queen started shutting down real early in the fall, that's why the lack of bees. We only had our first above 50 degree day 1 week and 1/2 ago, so I didn't expect much. Just glad to see larva and queen.
Last year was really wet and cool, so I think thats why both of my hives didn't build up well. Just glad I got a survivor.
Ahh....A spare hive with drawn comb and a remarkable queen. For my money I'd do a queen-less split. Move couple frames with standing on end fresh laid eggs and nurse bees to the spare hive, feed feed feed, let them raise a new queen and give you a new colony. IMHO best way to keep the genetics and costs nothing.
I've thought about this as well. Some folks on here disagree with the "emergency queen rearing" from a split like that. I don't know. So many opinions on this website, sometimes it gets really confusing.
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I have to tell ya this time around keeping bees I am in it for the experiences...so I am trying a bunch of stuff I never did before just to have tried it. I have little concern if others disagree with my way of beeking. For instance, I had a hive go laying worker last year, well there are lots-o-opinions about the best way to deal with that but I chose to add a frame of eggs a week for several weeks and before long I had a gorgeous newly mated queen laying like crazy. It was a very satisfying experience. So I say give it a try if you want to and go from there.
It is indeed good to see the bees again! What kind were they? Carni?? Russian? I would think some of those traits were involved. Maybe not.
Ken
They were actually Italians from packages at Brushy Mountain I bought last April. I think they got them from Gardner? Not sure though. The other hive showed signs of starving even though they had stores around and above them. This one only went through 2 frames of stores and it was a colder winter than normal. No global warming here.
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