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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: David Eckert <daveckert AT gmail.com>
  • To: Lewis Cauble <lewis AT hivebody.com>
  • Cc: Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Dear Abbee...
  • Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2013 08:29:08 -0500

Dear Sleepless,

Before you relocate all your hives to this magical micro-environment or start taking orders for the next greatest strain of queens, you might want to take another look and try to find some worker brood in addition to your bumper crop of drone bum brood.  If you don't find worker brood then you may have a drone laying queen.  Which isn't nearly as exciting since that would mean this hive isn't likely to make it for very much longer with this lady on the throne.   

If you can confirm that she's a drone laying queen then I'd suggest you skip the grafting and spend that time catching up on some sleep.  There will be plenty to do once Spring truly arrives.  

From Abbee's less insightful third cousin twice removed,
Dave


On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 5:11 PM, Lewis Cauble <lewis AT hivebody.com> wrote:

 

Dear Abbee,

I took advantage of the warm weather today and inspected a few colonies.  I've got some winners and some losers, but no surprises except for one. 

 

In bee school, they told me that all of the drones get kicked out in the fall because they are a bunch of lazy bums.  When resources start coming in to the colony in the spring, the queen will begin laying a new crop of bums.  Well, I opened a colony today and it was full of drones and drone brood.  Good news, right?  Spring must be here.  The funny thing is that I have other colonies within about 1000 ft of this colony but nary a drone or signs of drone brood in those colonies at all.  Should I move my other colonies closer to this colony to take advantage of an obviously superior micro-environment?  Should I graft off of this super queen? 

 

Enclosed please find a photo of my super queen.  

 

Sincerely, 

 

Sleepless in Cedar Grove 

      


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