Zante
Field Bee
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2016
- Messages
- 683
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Near Florence, Italy
- Hive Type
- Dadant
- Number of Hives
- 2
FINALLY!
A decent day to go and have a look at my new colonies. First time I've been able to do a proper inspection. Weather was badly overcast and quite humid due to yesterday's rain (all effing day) but temperature around 18 Celsius
They're doing well and building up in numbers. As I approached the hives there was a cloud of bees on orientation flights in front of both hives, more for each hive than both combined three weeks ago.
As I opened hive one, bees were a lot quieter than they were on previous inspections, and hardly smoked them at all. They're building up the foundation I've given them. One sheet has already some honey and a bit of pollen, and they've started drawing the second one. Didn't check the sheets of foundation on the right side of the hive.
I also serendipitously spotted the queen (unmarked). I'll have to call the bloke that sold them to me to ask if the queens he gave me were marked or not.
Hive two was also quite full of bees, but I think these might be a bit slow. The old, black frames they came with were a bit overdrawn to start with, and these have added some thickness of new wax to the existing instead of using that wax to draw the foundation.
The sheets I checked were a bit behind compared to hive one, but I checked the ones on the right side of this hive, for all I know they could have drawn the sheets on the left hand side as much as those in hive one.
Didn't see the queen or any eggs, but was satisfied the hive is doing well, with lots of bees and plenty of stores. Hive two was a bit more roused than hive one, so I closed it up and let them be.
I will be taking supers with me next week. Might not need them but I'd rather take them back with me than have to rush back to pick them up.
The old lady told me the exact spot where they used to get swarms in their old equipment, so I moved the bait hive in that spot. I'll be clearing their old frames of the old, rotten wax over the next few days and once I've chosen the best ones, I'll put a starter strip on each of them and put them in the bait hive, so it's easier to remove the swarm.
Note to self: go and visit that former neighbor and ask if he's still ok with me putting bees on his land.
A decent day to go and have a look at my new colonies. First time I've been able to do a proper inspection. Weather was badly overcast and quite humid due to yesterday's rain (all effing day) but temperature around 18 Celsius
They're doing well and building up in numbers. As I approached the hives there was a cloud of bees on orientation flights in front of both hives, more for each hive than both combined three weeks ago.
As I opened hive one, bees were a lot quieter than they were on previous inspections, and hardly smoked them at all. They're building up the foundation I've given them. One sheet has already some honey and a bit of pollen, and they've started drawing the second one. Didn't check the sheets of foundation on the right side of the hive.
I also serendipitously spotted the queen (unmarked). I'll have to call the bloke that sold them to me to ask if the queens he gave me were marked or not.
Hive two was also quite full of bees, but I think these might be a bit slow. The old, black frames they came with were a bit overdrawn to start with, and these have added some thickness of new wax to the existing instead of using that wax to draw the foundation.
The sheets I checked were a bit behind compared to hive one, but I checked the ones on the right side of this hive, for all I know they could have drawn the sheets on the left hand side as much as those in hive one.
Didn't see the queen or any eggs, but was satisfied the hive is doing well, with lots of bees and plenty of stores. Hive two was a bit more roused than hive one, so I closed it up and let them be.
I will be taking supers with me next week. Might not need them but I'd rather take them back with me than have to rush back to pick them up.
The old lady told me the exact spot where they used to get swarms in their old equipment, so I moved the bait hive in that spot. I'll be clearing their old frames of the old, rotten wax over the next few days and once I've chosen the best ones, I'll put a starter strip on each of them and put them in the bait hive, so it's easier to remove the swarm.
Note to self: go and visit that former neighbor and ask if he's still ok with me putting bees on his land.
