Thursday, July 15, 2010

For my Granny

I have been very busy with things and I have not had much time to post on here. My Granny in Florida has been keeping up with my posts and has made the comment that I have not posted in a while. So this one is for her!

I have 8 hives total. I have 6 at my house and 2 at the airport location. I will be moving two hives from my house to another location sometime closer to this fall.



I have gotten a queen castle to raise 3 queens at a time. All you do is put a frame of eggs, a frame of pollen and a frame of honey into it and 14 or so days later you get a new virgin queen. You can then sell them or use them yourself.



I have 4 newly hatched queens. I have one queen in a nuc hive. The three current ones should go on mating flights in the next few days and begin laying eggs by this weekend. I will keep one to requeen a mean hive, and I might sell the other 3. I am also considering trying to overwinter one nuc colony in the event I lose a primary hive. I can always sell it next spring if it makes it through the winter.



I have also had 2 metal hive stands built…. I have built in oil traps at the foot of them to keep ants, earwigs and anything else that crawls/walks off of and out of the hives. I have killed a good 30 bees with these traps. Not sure why those bees were on the ground and trying to crawl back up. Most likely they are already dieing or are deformed and the others kicked them out. I might try to market and sell the stands for $65.

weather at the hive