Friday, June 15, 2018

Taking apart Olea's hive

Three days ago, I saw only some bees on the front frames of Olea's, so I decided to dismantle the hive.  I started at the back of the box and found nectar in most of the combs.  I took out only three, one of which had two queen cells on it.  One was open at the end and the other on the side.
Queen cells on both sides of the comb
Open end where a queen has emerged

Queen cell opened on side.  The pupa inside had been killed by another queen and the workers removed the corpse

An empty queen cup
I set these in a holder and went to do some other work (Next paragraph).  When I went back to photograph them, there was a small cloud of bees around them.  I moved the comb further from the hives until the bees had cleaned them up at the end of the day.
I hefted the top super of #1 and since it felt pretty heavy I wanted to add a fourth super.  I had some unassembled frames from Bruce and Greg, but after I had nailed together a couple, I realized they were shallows and I only have medium foundation.  I  got my box of medium frames and assembled them.  I had some Duragilt foundations, also from Bruce and Greg.  I found the Duragilt difficult to install, and I am not the only one.  I stopped after 3 and used plastic foundation on the remaining.
I went to #1, stood on the milk crate and took off the top super.  It had 6 frames of capped honey.  Usually one does not add another box until there are 8 frames full, but I went ahead.  I checkerboarded 2 frames of capped honey.  I looked into the top super of #2 and saw that it was pretty much untouched, so I switched in two frames of capped honey from the lower super.  Left #3 alone.
The next day, while working the roses, I was attacked without provocation and stung in the left eyebrow.
I think the bees might have been extra defensive because of possible robbing behavior triggered by the open nectar left near the hives the day before.  To forestall any further robbing, I decided to completely dismantle Olea's hive.  I put the removed comb with nectar at the far side of the house.  There was quite a bit of wax moth damage on the distal combs.
The bees had removed all the nectar by the next morning
When I reached bar #6, I found capped worker brood and larvae!  There must be a laying queen in there after all.  I put in a bar with fresh wax and nectar (total 7 bars), placed the following board and put on an entrance reducer.  It looks like Olea's may survive.
I pinched off the capped queen cell that I had seen through window weeks ago.
 With manicure scissors, I carefully cut a flap in the side.
 There was the desiccated head and thorax of the pupa.
I opened the cell a bit more and could see some strands of the cocoon.
The two nucs seem to be doing fine.


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