Hi Folks!!
My Virgin queen was missing yesterday, no apparent swarm and I still have plenty of workers. If she took a mateing flight how long would she bee out mating and will she always come back?
I did a really close exam of all frames.
My 2 other hives have no drones at all and the only other bee's are 1.5 miles away.
It won't be a total loss and I can combine back with the parent hive.
1.5 miles is well within a drone congregation area, hives from even further away may congregate at the nearest drone area also. The Queen fliles to the drones, then the drones chase the queen, afterward she flies home. She is usually gone for several hours. Check back in a week, her multiple mating flights should be over by then and you'll know. You can always add a frame of eggs from one of your other hives as an insurance policy.
The blessed event has occurred...My little lady has become a "Woman"...sniff sniff...all choked up...
Yup...my little girl returned yesterday at some point..well bred and fat. The hive was soooo quiet and calm. I've been blessed with 3 very good natured hives. My only challenge has been to adjust frames to get them to build comb.
My mentor brought me out to his 60 hive bee yard for a complete frame by frame inspection tour...all I can say is woooow. Such a diverse cross section of the Bee world. Some were bright yellow..others dark. Some very tame..then the one little girl who followed me 100' to the truck..waited till I unsuited and nailed me in the head..ouch!!!! That will teach me not to take honey from HER again...hehe. The Bee yard sits amid 200 acres of melons and soy bean. The Honey is OMG HONEY!!!!!! Thats what we are calling it...
OMG HONEY
Got to see AFB for the first time...very sad..those 3 hives are toast.
Honey production varied a lot from hive to hive and trailer to trailer. Only a few really hot hives to speak of. Most were calm until we started resetting frames and removing supers. Several of the Meds were packed FULL...can you say HEAVY!!!!!!
I learned to take packed frames and slip the undrawn ones in between to give the queen room. By the time we were done there were so many bee's airborne it looked like LA Airport.
All in all it was a great day but VERY exhausting...I was whipped...Mentor asked me..." Still want to keep Bee's"...I said..."yup".
Thanks all for being my online mentor's...so much to learn....
Mark