Smart Feeder - Light sensor values

[Kermit]

Yesterday Fi and I looked in the hive after 10 days - cold weather and this was the first opportunity. However, I had put on a super with 10 Manley frames and foundation last weekend. The frames were being drawn quite nicely, so on to the brood box. First few frames - nothing. Then queen cell, uncapped. This brought up some recollection of having read about artificial swarms , so on we go and search for the queen. As we go through the rest of the hive, we find more queen cells and some are sealed . Still no sign of queen. Complete looking through brood box and no sign of queen, but still lots of bees, so they haven't swarmed yet .Go to plan T - retire back indoors and have a brew and read books .

 

Lots of ideas, but you need to find queen first. Phone around to find what to do if you can't find queen - got some ideas off internet, but nothing concrete. So, we decide to go back in and find her this time.... .... no matter what happens.

 

First we move the hive on to a new floor to one side of the original. Next put a new brood box and frames with foundation on original floor. Right, here goes - search for the queen. Fi checks frames first, followed by a good shake and I then check them. Finally on the 8th frame, there she is - paint almost worn off . Luckily this frame has lots of sealed brood, eggs and no queen cells, so it goes straight into the new brood box. All then shut up.

 

Next move is to head down to Phil Braithwaites and spend some money - new glass quilt and PAINT TO MARK THE QUEEN.

 

Today been on an apiary visit and we have had a good chat with people. Only one real error. We should have removed all but one uncapped queen cell. However, we have a cunning plan, which is to do this in a couple of days, but to use one of the sealed cells in a mini-nuc and raise a spare queen for if it all goes pear shaped.

 

We feel like real bee keepers now. Hope this gives some of you the confidence to get on with it when you find your first queen cells.

[Old Speckled Hen]

Let us know how you get on.

[Olly]

Ooh, well done! I've got to do it this week, luckily my beekeeping mentor is going to come and help - I never found the queen last year despite regular inspections, I have spotted queens on other people's hives at apiary visits so I have got some idea what to look for, but I only know mine is there by the traces!

 

Mentor is going to find her and mark her for me, my spare brood box is all ready and I just need to make up the rest of the frames tonight. Your hive, with sealed queen cells, sounds just like mine was last week.

[Daphne]

Hi Kermit - I meant to post yesterday but got caught up in something else. It seems to me that you are managing your bees, whilst I feel mine are managing me! Well done on persisting till you found HerMaj. When we found a QC I wasn't terribly sure what to do and thought AS but by the time somebody more experienced came to check I had an open QC and another one formed. They swarmed, I captured them and they're now in HiveNo2. So I have my fingers crossed for 2 colonys to grow!

[MedusA]

Well done. Sounds like you will have a second colony before long.

 

Just one thing to add.....in the May edition of "Bee Craft" Wally Shaw advises against destroying all bar one QC. His theory is that the bees will select one to be their new queen and will destroy the others themselves. I'm sure this is not the accepted practice, but interesting thought nevertheless.

[Guest]

Part of the accepted artificial swarm procedure is to move the old box (with cells) to the opposite side of the 'swarmed' colony after about a week.

 

This is done to get more flying bees in the swarmed section, so they say. But it is really a superb means of denying any, or many, 'flying bees' being in the old box when the first queen hatches.

 

There would be a risk of multiple casts if there were lots of flying bees and lots of queen cells - but there are not. That is why it is moved over one week later, only a day or so (as short a time as possible) before the new queen hatches. That prevents the secondary swarms. Unable to leave with more than a day's hatching-worth of flying bees invariably means she will kill the other near-hatching queens in their cells. Unless the bees are stupid, of course!

 

Splitting off for a nuc, is not the same as artificial swarming, and I do hope you were not shaking frames with closed queen cells which you may wish to use for the split. They are fragile and easily destroyed (on the inside) with no way of telling whether they are good ones or not.

 

That is why I always (nearly) leave two cells - if one is a dud, I have a second chance. I usually only leave one open cell, 'cos that is unlikely to be a failure.

 

Regards, RAB

[Kermit]

Update. We got a mini-nuc delivered from Modern Beekeeping yesterday (Tues) - not bad as we ordered it on Sun afternoon. So, we then opened up the hive and found only one unsealed queen cell, so this is the one that we left. Took out all the other ones. Then put one sealed queen cell and a shake of bees into the mini-nuc. Hopefully we will have a second queen if it all goes pear shaped.

 

What is the best way to put a queen cell in a mini-nuc? I left a bit of comb attached above and then put a pin through it. The pin now rests over two of the top bars and I am hoping that the bees will stick it in place.