Thursday, October 18, 2012

Still have two queens

I took a look into both the old and new hive today.
Top queen
Bottom queen
I spotted both queens in the new hive.  The bottom queen was much more active and would quickly run onto the shaded (under) side of the frame.  There was still only a small area of brood in the top box.  Honey production continues slowly.
I spoke to James, the local beekeeper from whom I had borrowed the nuc.  The swarm I had given him was queenless, or the queen did not returned from her mating flight, so no colony developed.  He suggested making a second entrance on top.  I'm not going to do this and will just see how things develop. 
There was lots of brood in the bottom box.   I thought the stored pollen was pretty.
The comb on the plastic frames in the nuc I got from Jeremy had an uneven surface and irregularities.  I sort of expected the bees to remold it, but they haven't.  Perhaps they will in the spring when they start making more comb.


I only looked in the supers of the old hive to check for honey- there isn't much.  I replaced three frames of foundation with frames with drawn comb.
I took notice of a difference between the two hives.  The new hive has considerably less propolis.  It is difficult to pry apart the boxes and frames in the old hive and my tool gets very sticky.  I hardly even need my tool while inspecting the new hive.  Most sources say that Carniolans are heavy propolis producers and my extensive experience bears that out.

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