[ocba] A couple of questions

Randall Austin ra41717 at gmail.com
Thu May 10 17:12:18 EDT 2012


Jim,

The OCBA has an extractor that is available for members to borrow. I 
would check with Todd Walker about getting ahold of it.

As far as your bees go, I try not to worry about stuff, with varying 
degrees of success. But your situation sure sounds curious, given the 
time of year and the fact you've got lots of bees. Do you know when your 
queen was released? If it was 3 or 4 days after the package was 
installed, that would be around May 2nd or so, so there should have been 
plenty of time to at least have some nice plump larvae. Mature queen 
bees are like chickens; they are going to lay regardless of whether the 
queen has actually mated or not, so I would expect to see something.

But if this is your first inspection since you installed the package, it 
is possible she wasn't released until, say, right before you opened the 
hive today. In that case she hasn't had time to do anything. I like that 
theory --- it would explain everything!

If it was my hive, I'd give it a bit more time before taking any drastic 
action. Maybe the queen is just taking longer than normal to get her new 
life sorted out. Or maybe my "took a long time to be released" theory is 
what's going on.

If you are truly worried, you could take a frame of eggs & larvae from 
your other hive and put it into this one. If the bees have no confidence 
in their queen, they'll make a new one. If everything is actually okay, 
the frame will just give the new colony a nice boost.

Please let us know how it turns out!

Randall Austin



On 5/10/2012 3:59 PM, Jim Musson wrote:
>
> I have a new hive which was installed on the 28^th  (bee package from 
> Jack) .  We inspected the hive today and we see lots of drawn comb, 
> some honey, a queen and lots of bees, but no eggs/larvae/capped brood.
>
> Should I be worried?
>
> Also we just harvested 6 frames of a shallow super (our first real 
> honey harvest).  Does anyone have an extractor we could rent/borrow?
>
> I live in Cedar Grove.
>
> Jim Musson
> /Digital Computer Services
> 105 W King St Suite 201
> Hillsborough NC 27278
> /jmusson at digserv.com <blocked::mailto:jmusson at digserv.com>
>
>
>
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