Toaday was a warm day in the 70's so i decided to check a few hives. One hive that is in question has stored 90% of the brood chamber in Honey. Three weeks ago brood was present and I found the queen. Today I found all the stored honey, could not locate the queen. I have keep bees in the deep south for many years, have never seen this before. Should I combine the hive with another? Polulation seems strong. Will look for queen again in a few days. We have had a cold snap thats has lasted two weeks. Not normal to have several days in the freezing range here at night. Just odd being my others hives still have brood in the center clusters. Any thoughts or ideas would be great. This hive has been weak all summer, Queen was new but not very aggresive layer. Also this is the only hive I have plastic cell in. Have had no luck at all with it. THANKS EVERYONE, MERRY CHRISTMAS......
Jesus, colllllllddddddddd weather is coming, leave them alone for the time being.
Bless you.
...JP
enjoy the winter, build some boxes, dream of the warm bountiful season to come, and leave your bees alone. 8-)
70 degrees! Must be nice :P Im not sure I'd ever get my husband's head out of the beehives if we lived down south- winter is like a vacation from Jon for our poor bees. Here, we open the hives at 50F, but I suspect our bees have been desensitized to the cold. You can observe similar tolerance in mammals here- when the temerature hits 50F, Mainers start walking around in shorts.
Mainers?? I thought people who live in Maine were maniacs :-D
90% in honey only leaves 1 frame to raise brood in. Where's the pollen? Can't raise brood without it. I'll bet your other ones have more pollen. Have you been feeding them? Maybe they were just determined to fill the cells all they could if you have been.
Quote from: ElDoBill on December 10, 2008, 07:10:14 PM
Mainers?? I thought people who live in Maine were maniacs :-D
Well actually, Im a transplant.. which means Im not even a Mainer (Im "from away"), my children are Mainers though. I think you need 5 generations in Maine to officially be a Mainiac.
We get the same thing here. We could live here a hundred years but if you're not born here you'll always be "from away" :roll:
Given that the local hospital no longer "delivers babies", I guess there won't be anymore true Lunenburgers. :-D
QuoteWell actually, Im a transplant.. which means Im not even a Mainer (Im "from away"), my children are Mainers though. I think you need 5 generations in Maine to officially be a Mainiac.
Maine is weird like that. My mom is from Maine. She's no longer a Mainer since she has moved away. She is now a flatlander. Doesn't make any sense. PA has more and bigger hills & mountains than Maine does.