Saturday, May 1, 2010

Update

Alan's nuc:
I think the brood I saw last time was 'mature' worker brood because this time I saw a worker bee emerging from one of the capped cells, but otherwise, there is no brood, and I'm thinking this hive is queenless. I don't see any signs of a replacement queen in the works or a recently hatched queen.

Martin's swarm:
Both of the deeps are about 60-70% full of drawn out comb with some honey. I saw a lot of drones hanging around too--some of them are really light colored. I didn't see a lot of brood, but I did see two queen cups and one recently vacated supercedure cell. How do I know it was recently vacated? I found the new queen--she looked virginal to me--on the second to last frame. Martin uses plastic foundation, and she was wandering around on a bit that had not yet been covered in wax. I will check for eggs and larva in the next two to three weeks and split the hive as soon as I can.

TBH: These gals are drawing out the comb beautifully. The last three top bars are almost completely drawn out. The first one is about a fifth of the way drawn out, so I added an empty top bar to the inside of it. I found the queen on the second-to-last comb. She is long, slender and completely black! Lots of brood, but not incredibly regular. I uncorked another entrance hole in the hive to give them more space to get in and out.

I'm going to wait until tomorrow to check the combo hive.

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