East Bank Bees Meet West Bank Bees-July 2, 2010

[JP]

Well, Schawee and I were at it again today. We removed two small colonies whose comb sections had fallen into the containers they inhabited.

Both were in a rebuilding state. The west bank bees had a pitiful looking queen, I think even a virgin that never mated.

We decided to combine the two and use the east bank's queen.

It was hot and very humid but we had fun. I'm on my way out the door now to seal them up and put them in my truck.

Tomorrow we will go to one of my bee yards and set the nuc up & release the queen. We will also be pulling honey and after that, likely another cut out that we looked at today, a big booming hive.


...JP

East Bank Bees Meet Westbank bees

[annette]

Why don't they fight if they both have queens???

Did you tie in all that comb that fell down???

Well I learned today that the queen can sometimes fly around and she will eventually come back.  That was interesting.

Thanks JP

[JP]

Pinched the west bank queen. She was a pitiful looking specimen and most all the bees ignored her. In my observation, they were essentially queenless.

They took to the east bank's queen because she was a mated, laying queen.

Neither colony had many bees and welcomed each other with open arms. A little smoke applied to each helped as well.

The combs that fell were in bad shape, mostly infested with shb.


...JP

[G3farms]

Nicely done JP and Schawee!!

With all of that fallen comb do you think either colony would have made it on there own?

Nice save.

[JP]

The west bank bees would not have made it without human or divine intervention. The east bank bees most likely would have succumbed as well as our flows until fall are mostly done with.


...JP