My sister gave me an observation hive for my birthday and I don't want to disappoint her. I think she wants to see bees herself. I am clueless. My thoughts are... 2 frames from my own hives (only 60 yards away)with a new queen and close it up for a few days. Or...a frame or two from another beekeeper some distance away. How about...2 frames from my hives with only bees and brood? (no queen) A 1-2 lb package with a queen. Can anybody help me? :?
A couple of frames from your own hive with bees and nurse bees will be fine (you can shake some additional nurse bees from other brood frames to if you want). Some bees will return to the original hive, but young nurse bees will stay in the observation hive. You don't want it to start out too strong anyway since it is small and will swarm easily when strong.
rob....
Any of the things you listed will work. If you give them a frame of brood, a frame of honey and shake bees off of a couple more frames of brood to compensate for drift and that fact that it will be four weeks before they have a laying queen. You could even boost them once along the line with some more bees from brood shaken in.
Thanks!! I hope I can make it work. I'll post some pictures along the way. 8-)
I do have two 3 lb packages with queens coming in May. I suspect that is too many bees for a two frame observation hive. Would that be right?
Hey Gary is that you in your avatar??
That's me.
Quote from: GaryMinckler on April 14, 2009, 09:02:40 AM
I do have two 3 lb packages with queens coming in May. I suspect that is too many bees for a two frame observation hive. Would that be right?
I would think so. They would be blistering and ready to swarm in no time.
Quote from: GaryMinckler on April 14, 2009, 10:45:29 AM
That's me.
Nice beard when I started mine I wanted it to be long but all I got was a bush.
(http://img126.imageshack.us/img126/3356/picture94.th.jpg) (http://img126.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture94.jpg)