we love bees
As we mentioned last week, there are many ways to equalize or make sure that your honey bee hives are of the same strength. The easiest way is to switch the place of a weak hive with that of a strong one. Another technique is to equalize brood, which Maria done.
Her goal was twofold:
In the following, we bring you the progress in the Maria’s apiary. The hives are building up nicely despite the chilly nights and constant rain. Most of the hives are filling out their first super. No signs of swarming so far except for one hive (there is always that one hive).
We’re about 3 weeks from the flow here. I like to do a cut-down split right before the flow. That way, I can increase my hive count without sacrificing production. I like to do raise my own queens for going into winter, so now is a good time to start my queen cells.
Since I only need a small batch, I am using the cut cell method with a small variation – while doing my inspections, I noticed a freshly laid comb from the queen I want to propagate from. So, I just needed to set up the cell bar and the cell starter.
I was lucky and spotted the queen on the first frame I shook into the cell starter. With the queen located, setting up the cell finisher is going to be a breeze. And so it begins :).
Maria share with us that the queen cells are progressing nicely and got capped on Friday 5/27. In couple of weeks, she would be able to see the laying pattern of the new queens.
Fingers crossed Maria! ?
