For want of a better word
Queen Bee
- Joined
- Oct 30, 2010
- Messages
- 12,502
- Reaction score
- 37
- Location
- South West
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- Miriads
I must have upset the Great Deity Of Beekind!
After driving to what seemed the other side of the planet and back to collect a more than dodgy grist of grey grizzlie bees, whose life mission is to swarm and to sting even the most kind and good natured person, such as me, given that they were happily living in the most delapidated of wrecked WBCs seen by beekeeperkind... I supposed their disgraceful manners can be excused....
however, homed in a palace of a restored vintage WBC they took it upon themselves to start building Queen cells.. one for every privaledged guest at the up and coming wedding all the girls are getting excited about!
AS thinks me... and readies me self with a smoker the size of a party 7... these little girls like smoke, while they are choking half to death they are not stinging! and I for one was not risking a defunct smoker halfway through the AS performance!!
Fresh virgin brood frames in nice clean brood box carefully placed on the old stance, each and every bee painstakingly and gently removed from the old brood frames and lovingly placed onto the new frames, a wire QE set down with extream care and precision atop the new brood box, and the old brood box and frames, once inspected for queen cells, placed on top.
The queen cells I had seen under construction less than 12 hours before had been taken down, the queen larvae in open cells had disappeared.... but one cup remained, I left them with that, capped brood, some drone cells but no eggs or larvae.
Fitted crown board , lifts and roof......... went and laid down !
next day as the sun rose high above Hessary Torr I found my angels all in the old brood box... and placed them on a new stance the other end of the orchard quite far away, stole a frame of brood with some young bees [ not the one with the ? queen cell as I had cunningly marked that frame!!]
and returned that to the new brood box on the old site.
A fair number of bees on in and around the old site, but no sign of anything like a queen, put the brood frame in, and gave then a brood frame of mostly filled stores and drawn brood { gave some the the AS'd lot as well]......buttoned them all up and went and laid down in a quiet room.
looked at both hives a little later in the afternoon.... not a bee in sight... of course they were all inside scoffing the bruised honey... a little later quite a few flying and loads of uncapings under the OMF [ I put the floor closers under the hive, but not inserted, or I would forget where I put them!!]
My question is what next ????????????????????????
After driving to what seemed the other side of the planet and back to collect a more than dodgy grist of grey grizzlie bees, whose life mission is to swarm and to sting even the most kind and good natured person, such as me, given that they were happily living in the most delapidated of wrecked WBCs seen by beekeeperkind... I supposed their disgraceful manners can be excused....
however, homed in a palace of a restored vintage WBC they took it upon themselves to start building Queen cells.. one for every privaledged guest at the up and coming wedding all the girls are getting excited about!
AS thinks me... and readies me self with a smoker the size of a party 7... these little girls like smoke, while they are choking half to death they are not stinging! and I for one was not risking a defunct smoker halfway through the AS performance!!
Fresh virgin brood frames in nice clean brood box carefully placed on the old stance, each and every bee painstakingly and gently removed from the old brood frames and lovingly placed onto the new frames, a wire QE set down with extream care and precision atop the new brood box, and the old brood box and frames, once inspected for queen cells, placed on top.
The queen cells I had seen under construction less than 12 hours before had been taken down, the queen larvae in open cells had disappeared.... but one cup remained, I left them with that, capped brood, some drone cells but no eggs or larvae.
Fitted crown board , lifts and roof......... went and laid down !
next day as the sun rose high above Hessary Torr I found my angels all in the old brood box... and placed them on a new stance the other end of the orchard quite far away, stole a frame of brood with some young bees [ not the one with the ? queen cell as I had cunningly marked that frame!!]
and returned that to the new brood box on the old site.
A fair number of bees on in and around the old site, but no sign of anything like a queen, put the brood frame in, and gave then a brood frame of mostly filled stores and drawn brood { gave some the the AS'd lot as well]......buttoned them all up and went and laid down in a quiet room.
looked at both hives a little later in the afternoon.... not a bee in sight... of course they were all inside scoffing the bruised honey... a little later quite a few flying and loads of uncapings under the OMF [ I put the floor closers under the hive, but not inserted, or I would forget where I put them!!]
My question is what next ????????????????????????
