Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: SherryL on May 13, 2005, 09:31:58 pm
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Just wondering where everyones hives are in terms of supering. :)
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It is my first year so I have no supers on yet my friend, in his second year, has 3 on right now with 2 of them fully filled.
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One hive has supers on it - the long hive. I plan to put supers on the other hive tomorrow.
Central Georgia - blooms began before Easter - first it was many flowering tress, and now the blackberries and fermosa trees are in bloom (plus many wildflowers). Not sure what's going to be blooming next, whether it'll be more flowers or blooms in the garden (tomatoes, cucumber, squash, etc.). But the blackberries are going from bloom to fruit that started only about a week ago.
Beth
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I am putting my second deep super on 2 colonys. We've had alot of moisture this year, and the bees are doing well. The packages I started are really taking off too. They are almost ready for another box. I pulled a few frames today and gave em a shake. Nectar dripping out like rain. I'll have to move em soon. Too many colonys for a residential neighborhood. And my poor old dog got his nose where it didn't belong today. His ugly old face is swollen and he want's alot of attention tonight.
Oh... and I live in a secret cave under Wayne Manor.
bahahahahahahahahah
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I'm going to start putting comb honey supers on this weekend. A flow just started this past week here in NY.
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Thanks guys.
I'm heading back up to my girls tomorrow morning. It's been in the 40's and raining there all week. My neighbor tells me the danelions popped up this week though, so I want to get one of those Ross Round supers on.
Temps are suppose to be a high of 57 degrees on Monday and 61 on Tues., hopefully the warm air will finally make it up that way.
I've got 3 deeps on that hive right now. I plan to check the brood situation, leave one deep on that hive with plenty of brood and bees (like 2/3 of the bees), move the other 2 deeps to a separate hive stand. Now, my question is where to put the queen? I've read 3 different scenarios...
1). to move the queen with the 2 deeps and let the 1 deep with the super and brood raise a new queen.
2). to leave the queen with the 1 deep and super using a queen excluder, and either buying (too late for that) or letting the 2 deep hive raise a new queen.
3). replace BOTH hives with new queens
The current queen is relatively new. She was a swarm queen last Aug. so I wouldn't feel a need to replace her at this point, plus, the hive was thriving when it was last warm enough to open the boxes back on the 19th or so of April - she seems to be doing a good job. So, that leaves options 1 or 2.
Any thoughts?
tia,
sherry
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I would think Number one. The bees will not be busy with the brood and can do more gathering.
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Since all five of my hives are from packages, and mostly on foundation, I'm looking forward to putting the second brood box on. :) They are drawing wax pretty slowly, but it's only in the last week or so that the first brood has hatched, so I'm expecting them to take off about now.
Yes, I am feeding, though the dandelions, plums, apples, veronica, and forget-me-nots are all in riotous bloom. So beautiful and such a sweet scent!
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I have two supers on my over wintered hive.
My other two hives are just getting started filling out their brood chambers.
They are the newly aquired swarms.
I'm in central California on the coast.
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I've had my bees for only a week and i need to put a second deep on one of my hives already!!! Thats with brand new comb and everything. They are kicking butt this year!!
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Now, my question is where to put the queen?
If your intent is to make the split for comb honey and then recombine, leave the queen with the comb honey supers, and take away all the brood. When recombining, determine the condition of the emergency queen and decide which queen better suits you and destroy the other and combine with newspaper.
If you plan on splitting for increase, then I would recommend buying a new queen instead of relying on an emergency queen (read ^kris posts on her recent experience with splits and emergency queens) or you might be disappointed. Place the new queen with the comb honey, as first year queens are less likely to swarm.
Good Luck....
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well besides having the honey problem with 1 hive I packaged this year, the other 2 packages are doing good, both have for brood a deep and medium, well I had 4 mediums supers that had 9 frame drawn comb already, so 1 hive has 1 super about 3/4 full and the other has 1 full that is about 3/4 capped and I put a second super on it today, I have to say 1 thing , I never thought 1 medium would be so heavy, this feels like 80 pounds, they have the comb capped about 1/2" out pass the top bar of the frame.
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Im in tennessee and my 12 packages have drawn 2 deeps and i am adding med supers this week
The problem im seeing is they have filled the 2ed deep box with honey and only have brood in the bottom box I put them all out on april the 2ed
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I have supers on about a third of them. The rest haven't taken off yet.
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I am putting on my supers this sunday on my 2 new hives. :D
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I did more work on the hives today. I'd done a split a week or so ago on my "tall" hive (two brood boxes were on, that's it). So today I looked to see who had a queen or brood.
Found an almost ready to hatch queen in one (supercede or replacement type), but what's really odd is that there was also some pretty young larvae.
The other box/split had no young larvae, but seemed to have three opened/empty queen cells.
Sooooo..... I put another brood box with new foundation in the one that has the baby queen. And I put a whole box of frames with brood on the other one, AND a honey super with fresh foundation, with the newspaper method, as if combining hives. I had taken that whole box off my long hive.
I didn't get much of a chance to look in the long hive, but I can see by the entrance that they're busting with bees. I did steal some honey though from the long hive. The top bar frames were full of honey, mostly capped. It was sort of a mess, and I had to get some of the honey by the handfulls. :) I still have more to harvest tomorrow, and expect to get about 30 pounds in the end. I also put a fresh honey super on that one.
Lots of work.
Beth
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I have an advantage. I have been beekeeping for four yrs and started with lots of drawn comb. It really makes a big difference.. I have ten hives. Four hives are starting on the fourth super, three are working on third super, two have the second super almost full and one is a swarm I caught this spring... It is just starting on a super. We had a great early honey flow.. No late frost to kill the buds... and just enough rain to keep things going. We are looking a great yr IF things hold up...!
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So far I'm expecting a really good year too. I'm amazed at the amount of blooms on everything. Even the honeysuckle bushes are half blooms. We've had very little rain too.... just enough to keep things green. Most years we have too much rain. Almost tropical rainforest at times. But this year is turning out perfect.
Beth