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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers
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- From: Lewis Cauble <lewis AT hivebody.com>
- To: "ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org" <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: Re: [ocba] Dear Abbee, my whoas are many!
- Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2014 10:52:05 -0400 (EDT)
Oh my! This is a sticky wicket indeed and perhaps beyond the scope of a listserve. I will take a crack at some of the questions and perhaps others will fill in from there. I would recommend contacting your Bee Inspector and see if he can come out and help discern what is going on.
For the strong colony...If you have capped queen cells AND eggs there is a strong possibility that the hive has simply decided to "change management". Sometimes the bees will dispatch the old queen before the new queen is laying, which can leave you with a period where you do not have eggs. Other times the bees will not dispatch the old queen until the new queen is up and running, so you will have mother and daughter working side by side for a period. In this scenario you will also observe newly emerged queen cells as well as healthy eggs (You have new queens running around that are not mated and will not be laying and you also have the old queen still working). The queen cells that you observed...Were they on the bottom of the frame or in the middle of the frame? Cells in the middle tend to be supersedure cells while cells on the bottom of the frame tend to be swarm cells. This seems an odd time of the year for swarming, but anything is possible.
As far as holding a queen in a cage...I have kept a queen in a cage with attendants in my kitchen cupboard (cool dark place) for about a week. Place a drop of water on the cage once or twice a day. Your milage may vary. Sooner is better.
Shook swarm how to. Perhaps of some use. The shook swarm method seems to be popular in the UK. In the States we seem to be more keen on doing splits.
I think you need an inspector that can help diagnose the weak colony and help sort out what is happening in the strong colony.
Lewis
On September 4, 2014 at 10:32 PM Brian and Lanette Fee <fee436 AT att.net> wrote:
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[ocba] Dear Abbee, my whoas are many!,
Brian and Lanette Fee, 09/04/2014
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Re: [ocba] Dear Abbee, my whoas are many!,
John Friedrick, 09/05/2014
- Re: [ocba] Dear Abbee, my whoas are many!, Randall Austin, 09/05/2014
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Re: [ocba] Dear Abbee, my whoas are many!,
Lewis Cauble, 09/05/2014
- Re: [ocba] Dear Abbee, my whoas are many!, Brian and Lanette Fee, 09/05/2014
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Re: [ocba] Dear Abbee, my whoas are many!,
John Friedrick, 09/05/2014
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