I went out to the hive this morning before church (it was still cool, so no chance of bees flying up my skirt!) to peek in on the bees. Good thing I did, because I saw a fallen comb at the bottom of the hive. Guess it wasn't attached that well to begin with.
After lunch, we went out to fix it. We also blocked off part of the hive because we ordered another queen. We figure if we see eggs or brood by the time she arrives, then we'll just do an "in-hive" split using the follower boards to make a nucleus colony. If it looks like the current queen is dead or MIA, then we'll just put her in and eventually remove the follower so the bees can use the whole 4-foot length.
Anyway, we pulled out a few bars (with bees busily festooning, making new comb) and moved them to one end of the hive, then grabbed the piece of loose comb. D remarked upon how light it was. We brushed the bees off into the hive (they didn't like that) and then used the hair clip method to re-attach the comb to the bar. We straightened it out the best we could, then replaced it into the hive.
We also fixed another bar of new comb that was starting to go crooked. I feel like we'll be having to check the hive every few days or so to ensure that no other combs have collapsed and that they are building straight.
 |
| Brand new comb! Look how gorgeous! |
Didn't see any eggs today, but we decided to wait until Wednesday to check the hive again to see if there might be larvae.
So that's....potential queenlessness, cross-combing (although not too bad), and re-attaching a broken comb. Wow! We've learned a lot in three weeks. = )
Also, does anyone out there know if Eastern Carpenter bees like to rob honeybees? We had one buzzing around us today while the hive was open. The ladies didn't seem to mind, but I did. I caught it with a butterfly net I brought along.
No comments:
Post a Comment