Picture: Honey bees having a feast!
July 1st. 2010 We had to wait for the afternoon to show up! It is always better to visit a colony when most honeybees are away foraging...it means less bees at home for us to disrupt; and that's a good thing.
We had a simple job to do....lots of manipulation but simple.
The "swarm" colony (the one that was in the tree!) consists now of a portion (maybe 30%) of the original honeybees from the Chanhassen green hive and their original Queen. We reversed the bottom box with the second, encouraging brood rearing. We will have to rotated the upper box entrance 180 degree, orienting all the entrances towards the East, but we have to wait until sunset when most bees are home. Then we placed the inner cover, added a pail of sugar 1:1. The sugar is necessary because the top box is brand new, with 10 new frames. The honey bees will have to work hard to "make" wax, in order for the queen to lay eggs properly and efficiently. We put a third box over the pail to protect it, and at last the brand new white painted cover. Ben will build a new hive stand this weekend! I hope!
For the original colony (the one who has a brand new young queen), on top of the 2 large hive bodies, we added a third and last large box which is the standard way of doing things in Minnesota the first year. We also gave them a pail with 1:1 sugar because the third white box is new, with 10 new frames. And again the bees will have to work to draw the combs, then the young queen will be able to lay eggs. This is the "Plan" for the Chanhassen Apiary.
No comments:
Post a Comment