Tree cutout

[wayne]

  Got called yesterday evening by a Tree Removal company working downtown. They dropped a tree with a nest inside.
  Camera gave up the ghost so no pics. The limb split when it hit. Temps in the low 50's so they weren't very active. Filled two boxes with comb and bees. Shook all the bees off the comb and in the box as I worked. Must have got the queen as all the stragglers began moving into the box.
  The comb was almost black and the honey very dark like sorgum, and very rich tasting.
Will feed and feed back loose honey to build up stores.
  Had about 10 gallons of empty comb to melt also.
  Love those free bees. No sign of mites either and they are on small cells of their own making. Hope they make it.

[Michael Bush]

If you get a change try measuring the smaller brood comb. :)

[biglipzit]

lol is it me or do u have a comb size fetish  :-P
JK but good job on the cutout. Let us know how the hive does in the next couple weeks.

[Michael Bush]

>lol is it me or do u have a comb size fetish

Yes.  I've been collecting all the info I can on feral bee comb sizes for the last seven years now.

[Cindi]

Wayne, good job, that was a lucky haul eh?  Glad you had some fun with it.

Michael, good for you, festishes are great things to have.  Mine is rocks.  Have a wonderful day, best of this great life.  Cindi

[Bennettoid]

Michael, good for you, festishes are great things to have.  Mine is rocks. 

 :shock:

[wayne]

 Rocks, as in Diamonds, Emeralds, Sapphires, and so on ?

  The hive is humming along. I am planning on opening things up the next warm day to assess their progress and install the feeder.
 Michael,
  I don't have a micrometer that will work on this and without a scanner or camera I did the best I could.
  I sampled several cells from different parts of the comb, both older black and new paler comb. Using a ruler I measured from center to center of the cell wall.
  That looks like right about 5mm center to center average. Some smaller and some right at 5mm slightly smaller inside. The larger was on the oldest dried out and darkest cells, and smaller on new cells. Older looked like the walls were thicker too.

[Cindi]

Bettenoid and Wayne!!!  I meant my rock pile I've been adding to for a couple of years, you have seen the picture in my posts, haven't ya, well, if you've missed it, it is a great rock pile and it has grown substantially in the past two weeks!!!!  Have a wonderful and great day.  Cindi

[Michael Bush]

Do it with a metric ruler like this:
http://www.bushfarms.com/images/47mmCombMeasurement.jpg

Measure across ten cells and divide by ten.

[UtahBees]

That's great Wayne! Congrats. I hope they make it through the winter as well.

Scott

[wayne]

Michael,
  Thanks for the pic. that is a lot easier on my old eyes. Measured the comb again that way and got an average of 49mm. A couple went 50 and a few went 48. As near as I could tell.
  Wish my scanner worked I would scan some samples and let you see.
 
 The yard looks like spring now. Temp went up to about 60 after a frost last night and the trays of left over comb and honey are alive with bees. The new hive is in 2 deeps for now, that's all I had on hand at the time. My others are a deep on the bottom and mediums from there up. Will probably move them to the same setup in the spring.

[Kathyp]

fetish:  1 a: an object (as a small stone carving of an animal) believed to have magical power to protect or aid its owner; broadly : a material object regarded with superstitious or extravagant trust or reverence b: an object of irrational reverence or obsessive devotion : prepossession c: an object or bodily part whose real or fantasied presence is psychologically necessary for sexual gratification and that is an object of fixation to the extent that it may interfere with complete sexual expression
2: a rite or cult of fetish worshipers
3: fixation


i'm going with number 3 here.....

i'd be interested also, and in the size of the bees.  ?  how do you know that comb size has anything to do with mites.  could it not be that the bees that have survived in the outside have developed better hygienic behavior and better resistance to mite carried disease?

[Michael Bush]

4.8cm to 5.0cm for ten cells is about what I would expect.

At 4.95mm I get a 19 day brood cycle.  That's a day shorter on capping and a day shorter on post capping.  That's a lot less Varroa in the cell and a lot less Varroa offspring.

[Cindi]

Kathy, ha!!!!  Off topic, but your post for some strange reason, took me back to my teenage years reading Nancy Drew mystery stories.  Why, I don't know, go figure that one.  Have a wonderful day.  Cindi

[Brian D. Bray]

>>i'd be interested also, and in the size of the bees.  ?  how do you know that comb size has anything to do with mites.  could it not be that the bees that have survived in the outside have developed better hygienic behavior and better resistance to mite carried disease?

Even the Scientist will acknowledge that Apis Cerena has a smaller comb, being a smaller bee, and that Apis C. only has drone brood that is affected by varroa.  The worker cells are too small.  In the Occidental world we've mistakenly tried to grow a larger bee and have manufactured out foundation based on the erroneous assumption that a bigger bee will be more productive.  As a result, the "domesticated" (should read managed) EHB has worker brood cells that are pretty much the same size as Apis C. drone comb cells.  That is why the varroa mite is replicating in both the worker and drone comb of the EHB.  The AHB has brood comb more closely associated with Apis C., which is one of the reason AHB are not as succeptatable to varroa.

[Understudy]

If you get a change try measuring the smaller brood comb. :)

Mike if I had know that I would have been sending you samples.

Sincerely,
Brendhan