Thursday, June 2, 2011

New worries!

I woke up in the middle of the night a couple of days ago with a new realization.
I put my bees in the hive 4 weeks ago; my queen was not laying eggs; the new queen's eggs wouldn't hatch for 3 weeks; bees live for only about 6 1/2 weeks; simple arithmetic- my hive (and queen) would be without any worker bees for a few days and my colony would die. I contacted Kathy, my bee mentor, and discussed the dilemma. We decided that putting a brood frame from one of her hives might supply enough workers to get through the crises. We visited one of her hives and placed a frame full of brood and covered with nurse bees into a nuc box. At my hive, we misted the bees on the frame and in the hive with 1:1 sugar water and bee essence. This covers up the bee's smell and promotes grooming so the implanted bees will be accepted. Now I hope for the best.
I also added a medium super.

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