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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: Jim Musson <jim AT musson.org>
  • Cc: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] A couple of questions
  • Date: Thu, 10 May 2012 17:12:18 -0400

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:
ECC8D32CB8F95B4BB163B82AC69A17CC51A60A AT exch.digserv.ext" type="cite">

I have a new hive which was installed on the 28th  (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



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