syrup being put into mini frames for mating nucs. or mating nuc frames being washed out.

never saw anyone doing that before.

 

I don't think they are filling with syrup as they sure are wasting alot if they are. I found interestind slides dc9054 and dc9056 with the starters under a roof, wish I had that, but I found the # of dead bees on the table to be larger than I would like in my starters. the second thing that didn't impress me was the number of cells they were trying to start in one starter, i think the frame had around 54 places for cells and he had two, one in each hand which means a minimum of 108 they were trying to start, the one frame I counted had around 30 that they actuallly started queens on. I would have to see if I can find my notes on the # of lbs of bees needed to start a certain # of cells, it doesn't look to me like they have any wheres enough bees to feed that many queen cells. but then again its hard to judge from 3000miles away.

 

the second thing that didn't impress me was the number of cells they were trying to start in one starter, i think the frame had around 54 places for cells and he had two, one in each hand which means a minimum of 108 they were trying to start, the one frame I counted had around 30 that they actuallly started queens on. I would have to see if I can find my notes on the # of lbs of bees needed to start a certain # of cells, it doesn't look to me like they have any wheres enough bees to feed that many queen cells. but then again its hard to judge from 3000miles away.

from the rossman apiaries article by jennifer berry you nees 400 nurse bees per queen cell, to get the bees to start 108 queen cells, using 4000 bees per lb, without my handy dandy calculater that comes to 108x400=43200/4000 about 11lbs of nurse bees to start that many cells. since the one frame had room for 54 queen cells and they only started around 30 they in my mind were well short the # of nurse bees needed to feed the queen cells in my opinion. but then again thats not the thread title.

 

They do make good queens. That's all I know.

 

cleaning out so they can place in breeder Queen hive for grafting

 

The spray hitting the frame and that on the ground looks like there is some type of soap-like substance being applied. Perhaps not, but it sure looks that way.

 

Sure looks like the combs are being washed out, but why?

 

Mass production. Wash the frames of comb out so the bees don't have to do it. Fast paced world you know...

 

one thought is these are the frames they are grafting out of in some previous pictures, mayby they are just washing out the lava that they didn't graft so they can use the frames again?

 

Could be, I guess. But they look like mating nuc frames to me.

 

if you look at picture dsc7087 you can see that they use the little frames for grafting.

 

Sometimes we wash frames to make the queens lay in it. I dont know why, but if you wash the frames and put it back in the hive, the queens start laying in them very fast.

 

what do u wash them w/? something more than water?

 

Just water. Nothing else.

 

I use vinegar to wash out my horse troughs and other items around the farm. Also put cider vinegar in the horses water and rabbit bottles to acidify the water to keep down the algae growth. I also use cider vinegar in my bee syrup and pollen patties.
When I fill the troughs and they have vinegar in them, they will foam up quite a bit. That is what I would use for washing frames/comb if I did so.

I had several frames of dead brood last summer out of a split I accidentally suffocated from not enough ventilation. (Newbie mistake) I thought the birds might clean them up for me if I left them out. They just turned black and ugly and I lost all that nicely drawn comb. Spraying them out with a vinegar/water spray seems like good idea in that situation-or others like it. Just my guess.

 

Is it possible that they are washing old pollen storage out of the comb. I believe that Lauri may be onto something as I thought they had some foam but not enough for soap. Looked like to me the frames that weren't washed may have had scattered pollen. Mix of vinegar and water to get rid of any residue left in the comb. Light on the vinegar. If I were into heavy queen rearing I could see doing this.

 

Seems like vinegar would be a good idea, but wouldn't you have to have a resevoir of vinegar between the water source and the nozzle? Like the unit people use for spraying fertilizer on their lawn?

 

Yup, get a brass siphon from a AG store.

 

Washing brood and eggs out of grafting frames. When you put the clean frames back into a breeder queen hive you know the exact age of the resulting larva, so no guessing on the part of grafters, who might have just arrived from Mexico or Ukraine. You could also use clean frames to check for laying qualities of newly mated queens.

 

The thing I notice is that the color changes quite a bit from the unwashed frames to the washed ones.

The reason also might be that they are infected with something or they are cleaning off the excess honey after spinning so they can hang them somewhere to dry and not have bugs or bees going after it.

Just a guess.

 

You looked at more pix than I.

 

Washing the frames before grafting. Thats whay I do. The old dark comb is great to see the larva.

Wash, shake out, dry...insert into hive for laying then grafting.

Just water.