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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: Alicia Reenders <a.reenders AT gmail.com>
  • To: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [ocba] queen cups
  • Date: Mon, 9 May 2011 16:06:11 -0400

Hello everyone!

I have had an exciting 2nd year of beekeeping so far. I was sad I couldn't make it to the splitting workshop saturday, because I'm currently hoping to make a split soon. I've just been trying to read up on how to do it, but I'm not really confident. I plan on waiting until I have some closed queen cells and then divide frames between 2 hives.

I currently have 2 deep hive bodies, the top one full of capped honey and open nectar I guess? I also put a honey super on top, no drawn comb there and they haven't touched it.

The bottom one has tons of bees! 2 frames have pollen and nectar, one has honey. The others are all full with all stages of brood. I've already had one round hatch, and have lots of bees. I also have about 10 queen cups scattered throughout, and I spotted the queen again today.

My question is, can I assume that the queen will lay an egg in a queen cup before they swarm, and that I'll be able to check the cups every few days to catch this? And then, should I be able to wait until they close the queen cup and then go ahead and split the hive? Is there a good chance they'll swarm before that? If so, are there other folks out there selling queens that I could introduce? Busy Bee is booked until June.


Thanks so much for your help! Again, I wish I could have made it to the workshop. You probably answered most of these questions there.

Thanks for your help!

-Alicia



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