Politically incorrect thoughts and events in the life of an amateur beekeeper. If you came here on a phone and the PayPal links don't show, scroll down and choose web version.
Monday, August 20, 2018
The queen in the yellow box must go
I started to call her something that begins with a B but thought better of that. I'm sure that you can figure it out. We typically have anywhere from 7 to 15 beehives in the club yard at any time. With recent additions I believe we are at 9 plus the twin mating nuc. We have a colony in the back of the yard in a yellow box. Been there perhaps two months. Every time I've been in that box they've been pretty nasty. Yesterday we went in and sure enough they came out pretty mean. Stuart thought perhaps they had a high mite load. I thought that's possible and made plans to do a mite wash and OAV treatment. Yesterday evening, Eddie and I went to Titusville and removed a colony from under a storage shed. There were perhaps six frames of capped and uncapped honey in nice new almost white comb. Eddie took that home. We had to pull up the floor in two places to find the whole colony, the brood nest was fourteen combs, each five inches deep and 16-18 inches long. We cut the comb and put six pieces in an 8 frame box and two in a nuc. The rest I am rendering down. It was late when we got done so we put the vacuum box on a hive stand and the 8 frame on top, then pulled the divider. I like that aspect of the box, it just lets the bees migrate up and I can dump the trash later. The nuc I put at mom's house. I wanted to check them today and re-stack so I figured I'd do a mite wash on the yellow box while there. For those who were there yesterday, if you thought they were bad then you should have seen them today. Maybe it was because yesterday there were five of us and just me today but I was surrounded. Wore sweatpants and a sweat shirt, no stings through the clothes but at least 100 stingers in the fabric. One got in my veil and I took a hit to the left forehead. Did an alcohol wash, shook off five frames from the second box up, mostly brood frames. I let some of the fliers go and did a pretty good look for the queen, although considering the temperament I really wasn't that concerned. Did not see her. First wash showed no mites, thats zero. Thought no way right. So I did another. Looked specifically for drone comb, shook off three frames, with drone brood, did another wash. One mite. So much for a heavy mite load. Took all of the bees from the wash home and counted, 496. From 496 bees I got 1 mite. This queen needs to go. As soon as I have a mated queen she has an appointment with destiny. On some positive notes. The cut out from yesterday was attaching the comb to the frames and bringing in pollen, way cool. I looked for the queen but did not see her. Stopped by mom's on the way home to check some QC's, I caged two capped cells that will come out Friday or Saturday. In a matter of contrast, In the yellow box I had a sweatshirt tucked into sweatpants as body armor. In mom's box I was wearing a T shirt and shorts, no gloves but a veil and they didn't even care that I was there. I want more of these kind of bees.