ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject:
Orange County, NC Beekeepers
List archive
- From: Julie <jld921 AT gmail.com>
- To: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
- Cc: "ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org" <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: Re: [ocba] Fwd: hanging outside the hive??
- Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 13:49:58 -0400
Thanks. I really appreciate all the input!
Julie
Sent from my iPhone
Julie,
Since you have 2 hives, the easiest way to determine whether you
have a queen (maybe a new one that isn't laying yet) or not is to
take a frame of eggs/very young larva from your good hive and give
it to the suspect hive. Mark the frame, e.g. with a thumbtack on
the top bar. Go back in a few days and see if the bees have begun
drawing out emergency queen cells on that frame. If so, at this
time of year I wouldn't wait for them to make a new queen -- I
would buy one. If you do buy one, cut out all of those emergency
queen cells first so the colony will accept the new queen. If they
have a queen or are making one, they won't accept an outside one.
Constant (extreme) manipulation isn't good for hives and neither
is passive observance of natural hive activity. If people follow
the latter, they'll get to observe hives as they naturally wither
and die due to the effects varroa infestation. It would be like
getting a dog and deciding to put it out in the backyard and
passively observe its natural activity. That wouldn't end well
after a while, and it doesn't for honey bees in modern North
America either. I recommend that beginners err on the side of
over-manipulation/bee care (they'll learn a lot, if nothing else),
and then they can adapt based on their objectives and what they've
learned are the must-do versus can-ignore chores.
Randall
On 8/22/2014 10:44 AM, Julie Daniels wrote:
Randall, thanks for the reply. When I went back to
do the recommended diagnostic - the cluster (or beard, as
another called it) was down to a dozen or so lounging on the top
of the base (no hangers). I went through the hive and found no
queen or evidence of laying activity. I have reasonable honey
and lots of pollen. Maybe the question is whether to add a
queen or to see if one they might have produced gets busy (how
long is safe to wait/be queenless)????
I appreciate the reminder that this is supposed to be
tranquil...that's what I was hoping for when we started; but
lack of knowledge/experience and non-textbook situations have
made it stressful, though I am still completely intrigued by
the bees. I am getting the spectrum of beekeeping ranges from
1- passive observance of natural hive activity to 10- constant
manipulation. I was hoping to be on the lower end of the
spectrum since I'm in this for environmental/kid-learning
interests rather than honey or money; but if there is a simple
intervention that could save a hive (e.g. re-queening), that
seems quite rationale.
Julie
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