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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: "Thomas Grizzle" <griz AT mindspring.com>
  • To: <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [ocba] Queen Cells
  • Date: Tue, 8 May 2012 13:15:54 -0400

Hi All,

 

Take everything I am about to say with a grain of salt.  A newbee is talking here.

 

I am 3.5 weeks into installing a bee box and queen (from Busy Bee) into a single new 10-frame hive with nothing but foundation.  I fed them the equivalent of two 5 pound bags of sugar and stopped feeding them at that point.  Today I went into the hive to check it out. 

 

There appeared to be more bees than I installed, that’s the first thing I noted.  There is honey stored away on parts of a few frames, and capped brood were visible.  I find searching for a queen a hopeless endeavor.  It is like looking at a giant oak tree on a breezy day and trying to find the biggest leaf.  Ain’t gonna happen.  That aside, I went through all 10 frames and found 4 queen cells, one in the middle of a frame, one more to the edge but not on the edge, and two on edges.  I destroyed all four.  Too late it occurred to me that I might have a failing queen and they were trying to “fix things.”

 

There were still two frames with no comb drawn out, so they are not overcrowded.  My Chapel Hill site is in a neighborhood next to a rather large forest (for in-town), the American Legion woods…about 20 acres, I’d estimate, and there are poplar trees here I am certain.  Water is not a problem.  Anyway…

 

What should I do?  Let them be(e) seems like the best option at this point.

 

Tom Grizzle




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