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ocba - Re: [ocba] Hive swarm today or just kicked out a failing queen?

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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: "birdcr AT concentric.net" <birdcr AT concentric.net>
  • To: "birdcr AT concentric.net" <birdcr AT concentric.net>, ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org, NaturalBeesinNC AT yahoogroups.com
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Hive swarm today or just kicked out a failing queen?
  • Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 10:42:33 -0500 (CDT)

Folks,

This morning I opened up the feral Hillsborough hive that had a
damaged queen and tiny swarm with it on August 24th.

I found this hive hotter than I can recall any of my hives at
opening. Got stung 3-4 times through my jeans and gloves, good
thing I was wearing a veil and jacket. 10-15 bees were on me even
after leaving the hive three times.

I found one beetle (yeah) lots of capped brood, honey and nectar.
And get this at least 6 chewed away queen cells and 5-6 queen
cups. So they did have a swarm event and likely change of queens.
I looked at 5 frames before I decided they were too hot. Never
have seen a queen in this hard to get into hive.

One more thing about these girls. They have yet to draw any
foundation period, nada not at all. They are using only the comb I
brought home from the cut out.

Checked my mother hive, they looked good, but had a number of
beetles, killed maybe 40. A powdered sugar treatment brought down
maybe 100 beetles into my oil pan. Not seeing many mites in the
pan. I removed a 10 frame super from this hive to help with the
beetles and tighten them up some.

The top bar hive is still drawing comb slowly. More bees in there
now than ever! Lots and lots of brood! I killed maybe 35 beetles
and gave them a powdered sugar treatment. Will post a photo of one
of the top bars full of bees and comb on my blog.

Also the hive I inspected last week full of beetles. The bottom
tray now has at least 250 dead beetles! 150 more than shortly
after the powdered sugar treatment.

Cheers,
Randy Emmitt
www.rlephoto.blogspot.com



On Fri Aug 24 20:31:25 CDT 2012, "birdcr AT concentric.net"
<birdcr AT concentric.net> wrote:

>
>
> Folks,
>
> Last night we had what I thought was a huge orientation flight at
> 5:30pm, took video of it, not sure if they were indeed swarming.
> it just did not look like they were.
>
> This afternoon I found two tiny piles of bees 7ft and 15ft away
> from my feral hive. The smaller cluster of bees had a mature
> damaged queen with it. The other I found nothing but worker bees.
> Anyway I did a report on my blog with some HD videos if you ant
> to have a look. Any input would be great, thanks!
>
> Cheers,
> Randy Emmitt
> www.rlephoto.blogspot.com
>


  • Re: [ocba] Hive swarm today or just kicked out a failing queen?, birdcr AT concentric.net, 09/08/2012

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