Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: bill on June 06, 2005, 05:20:18 pm
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O perhaps I should have said bungling about.As you remember I told you last year about being given an old hive that an ex farmer had moved to town. My son and I didn't realize that the bottom board was nailed to a pallet that it was sitting on. When we lifted it up[ to put on the back of the truck we tore holes in the bottom board, releasing the bees, who had been secured by my benefactor. we had no protective clothing on at the time so we suffered many many stings which we both endured without serious problems as we are both not allergic to stings..WEll after a while we got them secured except for about a million warriors that probably died anyway since they all stung us. As soon as I got them home I thought I could probably build up to about ten hives, and sell a lot of honey at the farmers mkt where I sell p[roduce. So I read everything I could find and ordered two queens. I was going to make two nucs. and get started in expansion. well the one nuc Was robbed then taken over by a swarm that I brought home. And the other I never saw the white spot on her again after she was released in the other nuc. Now I have been thinking that I might have carried the queen of my big hive into the nuc and she killed her. or mabe the bees just killed her. I sure cant find a queen in any of them, swarms,nucs or main hive but My eyes are just a bit dim from age. so they might be all queenrite. they all have a lot of honey that I took frome the big hive when I made the nucs and I have since divided it up between them. They are all flying and working my melons, well. The small ones are building comb and have brood. It seems like there are a lot of drone capped in two of them but I might have just given them a lot of drone comb when I started the nucs, I have been trying see small brood but I cant see it, or the eggs, they are just too small. I think the only thing that will help me is to keep learning to read the frames till my inspections tell me what is really going on. would it hurt to get the bees of of a brood frame and carry it into the house to examine closely? And would a swarm that started drawing out comb in a good pattern but the 2 inches in the center looking like drone capped cone, be normal? also some of the combs I robbed from the big hive have what looks like worker capped cone but it just seems to stay there . thanx for your patience patience. I will get better, If this seems a bit confused It is my fault . from what I read from bush and finsky I know I gave them too much space which might be the problem
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would it hurt to get the bees of of a brood frame and carry it into the house to examine closely?
You don't want the brood to become to cold or it will become chilled and die. One thing that I have found to work will is to angle the cells into the sunlight and bring a magnafying glass. Thatusualy helps to spot eggs and young larva.