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Author Topic: Drawing comb  (Read 13270 times)

Offline firetool

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Drawing comb
« Reply #20 on: March 15, 2005, 10:45:49 am »
Right now they have been between 30-45F at night but we have had some very warm days to.It got to 80F the other day.
  I will try putting the box under it. It seamed the right way, then the bee's
have to travel throught the new hive ever time they come and go. I would think that they would start filling it in faster becouse of this.

 Brian

Offline Finsky

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« Reply #21 on: March 15, 2005, 12:43:21 pm »
Quote from: firetool
Right now they have been between 30-45F at night but we have had some very warm days to.It got to 80F the other day.
   Brian


It seems that you have summer enough there. You can also do that you put 2 brood frames in the middle of lower box and  put  a couple of foundations in the one side of upper box. If you have pollen frames in upper box, you can move them in lower box. So queen get new space in warm part of box.  If you have capped honey, dont put it down.

Do you have honey flow there? Do bees fly they back body hanging?

If they have full load, they wings give a rough noise like a car's engine.

Offline firetool

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« Reply #22 on: March 15, 2005, 05:10:39 pm »
I was woundering how fast can bees draw out the comb roughly. I don't want to open there hives to much. If I have a rough estimant on how long I can leeve them alone long enought for them to get some work done. Plus it is cold for the next few days.

I will whatch for these things that you said and see!
When you said to watch for the honey flow there back body hanging.I just want to make sure I understand you correctly. Do you mean there abdamane will be hanging lower than the rest of their body.


Brian

Offline Beth Kirkley

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« Reply #23 on: March 15, 2005, 05:26:17 pm »
How fast they draw out comb has a couple variables that I can think of that would make it too hard to know how long it takes.
- how many bees there are in the hive
- if they are really interested in drawing comb

If you have a good hive, and they're starting to draw comb, then my experience has been that it took about one day to get 75% of on side of a frame done. If that helps at all. :)

Others may have had other experiences.

Beth

Offline Finsky

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« Reply #24 on: March 15, 2005, 05:43:15 pm »
Quote from: Beth Kirkley

Others may have had other experiences.

Beth


Where are we talking about? Here is the best winter, in Paris it seemed to be spring, somewhere is summer.  

When hive is full, it needs more space in every situation. If bees come out and are hanging outside, it is the last sign: More space.

If you have 2 boxes, often it seems that hive is full, but when you take upper away, the lowest is allmost empty.

If you are getting good honeyflow, and you see that there is space enough, you just put more. Have you there honeyflow, or is it snow fall like in Jerrymac forecast.

It is imposible to give advices if you do not know the whole situation.
To put more space is not so dangerous, but if you do not give, hive swarms.

It is most easy to look inside and see, how much hive has space. That is the way how beekeeper learns.

Offline Jerrymac

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« Reply #25 on: March 15, 2005, 07:30:14 pm »
Yes it is snowing today. I don't think we are having any honey flow at the present time. There are these weeds with a lot of yellow flowers but I haven't seen the bees anywhere near them. I noticed some purple flowered weeds the other day but haven't had a chance to see if bees are going to them. In the city I have seen fruit trees blooming, but I don't live close enough to any of them. Perhaps firetool has a bit of a different situation. But I can't think of any orchards near where he lives. Unless the bees do go five or six miles to get there.
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Offline Beth Kirkley

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« Reply #26 on: March 16, 2005, 12:14:02 am »
And here.... in middle Georgia, we're probably about to hit a nectar flow. I haven't learned them well yet. But the pine trees blew pollen about 6 weeks ago. The day lilies bloomed weeks ago. Some wild flowers are blooming. And I noticed a few days ago that the dogwood trees all over town are blooming.

I'm sure there's more, but just haven't noticed specificly yet. I think it's really only the begining of the flowering. I remember last year that when the dogwoods were in high bloom, everything seemed to be also. I also remember that last year my hive got honey bound right after it swarmed. This year I made sure to get ahead of things. I've been in both hives already to check it out. I'm in a better situation this year with drawn comb. So I'm hoping to avoid the swarm/honey bound thing.

Once I see that the queens have begun laying some, I plan to do a split. I know she's laying, but it's different than other times of the year. It's more like she laid eggs, and they all hatched at the same time (nearly). Right now I have strong hives, more bees than I did a couple months ago, and tons of empty brood cells. Only a few capped brood, but can't see any larvae. If the weather is good at the first of the week (expecting rain for the next couple days) then I'll check them again and hoping to find brood good for a split.

Beth

Offline Finsky

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« Reply #27 on: March 16, 2005, 02:36:22 am »
Quote from: Beth Kirkley
Only a few capped brood, but can't see any larvae. If the weather is good at the first of the week (expecting rain for the next couple days) then I'll check them again and hoping to find brood good for a split.

Beth


It seems that you have not old queen in the hive. Haven't it swarmed?
Do you have queen cells in the hive, or hatched queen cell? Broken queen cells?

Offline Beth Kirkley

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« Reply #28 on: March 16, 2005, 09:04:59 am »
No queen cells - yet. :) Last year the hive swarmed on March 17th. So this year I wanted to to what I could to avoid it.

Last spring I split the hive after the swarm, because the hive was still crowded. If I had known more last year, I would have recognized the swarm cells that I had in the hive at that time. But it was my first spring, so I was majorly new to this. Not that I'm an expert now!

But after the swarm, I split the hives and gave each one a new queen. But I believe I wasn't able to buy the queens until April, so they had a few weeks without a queen.

So is a one year old queen young? I looked over every frame (face and bottom) rather well, and did not see any queen cells forming or open.

Beth

Offline Finsky

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« Reply #29 on: March 16, 2005, 09:22:47 am »
Quote from: Beth Kirkley
I looked over every frame (face and bottom) rather well, and did not see any queen cells forming or open.

Beth


But why larvas are missing? It is not normal. Is there a new queen and it has killed the old one. Does hive have  eggs ?

Splitting after swarming? - No honey, no money

Offline firetool

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« Reply #30 on: March 16, 2005, 10:22:26 am »
I do have some fruit trees in bloom right now. There are some pear, peach and plum trees right now! I have not noticed the heavy abdaminse yet per say or the loud wings from heavy load. I will be watching and lesining for these to things when it warms up.
 My queen is laying some I have seen larva already, while I was moving the hive. I did find so drone cells and checked them for mites. It is positive for mites. Who can I tell if they are a problem or not? I opened and emptied a few of them to see if their where any and how many. I found about four or five from about seven or eight drone cells. Is this good or bad?I would like to keep from using cemicals if at all possiable.

Brian

Offline Finsky

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« Reply #31 on: March 16, 2005, 10:55:13 am »
Quote from: firetool
I found about four or five from about seven or eight drone cells. Is this good or bad?I would like to keep from using cemicals if at all possiable.
Brian


It is quite much. You should now destroy all drone cells that mites cannot reproduce there.

Also make a drone frame, from where it is easy to  take drone pupas away and to clean cells. With drone fames you can catch about 50% mites away.  You cannot use chemicals when you have brood.

You can also use this http://www.xs4all.nl/~jtemp/dronemethod.html
.
.

Offline firetool

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« Reply #32 on: March 16, 2005, 11:32:00 am »
Thank you I will get started tring to remove them right away. They have some space to try to make more drone cells so I will watch for the drone and remove them right away. After I clean them out I put them back right so I can do it again.

Brian

 

anything