So our temperatures have begun to drop into the 50s (and occasionally high 40s) at night. The goldenrod flow was decent (at least it made my whole yard smell like a locker room).
Just went through both of my hives to see what they need for the winter. Both are first year (April package and late June split), and had plenty of bees, though definitely down from the August peak.
The Lang has a bit too much space and more SHB than I want to see though no slime yet, so I added 3 AJ Beetle-Eaters to it. My dad had made two Sonny-Mel traps, but they killed more bees than SHB - not sure what the design flaw was. Due to some half-drawn foundationless frames, this hive has a bit too much empty space, and I wish I could take it down to a single deep. Saw eggs and brood, though they are definitely scaling back for winter. 3, maybe 4 frames with brood. 4 frames of capped stores. Probably 3 more of uncapped. Some fully drawn frames were bone dry, but they are still bringing in goldenrod.
The long hive had a few frames not drawn out, which I removed, and some fully drawn but empty - moved those closer to the main honey area so they can fill them if they have nectar or syrup. We saw 3 frames of capped brood, some older larvae, no eggs that we saw. 6 frames of capped and uncapped stores - they have backfilled the old broodnest and brood is now in an area that used to have honey. And though we didn't see eggs, we saw two different queens! One smaller and skinnier and runnier...but I don't think she was a virgin as we spotted her easily and she was dragging her abdomen somewhat. I'm hardly in a panic, as the capped brood pattern was *great*, but do you think the lack of eggs is just due to scaling back the laying rate for winter? Or does the presence of a daughter queen suggest something is wrong?
Also you think I should feed either of these hives? Neither is large, but the amount of stores compared to brood is favorable. They each have empty comb that either needs to be filled with stores or removed to keep the SHB at bay.
two queens are not a problem. it happens more often than most people think. the old queen may have been replaced and these two are among the replacements. the old queen may still be in there, but not doing her thing. for whatever reason, the hive made a new one but did not kill the old.
at any rate, it's nothing to worry about.
Quote from: caticind on October 19, 2010, 10:01:21 AM
My dad had made two Sonny-Mel traps, but they killed more bees than SHB - not sure what the design flaw was.
Dad here. Apparently the holes were a bit too small to let the SHBs in. I used a soldering iron with a 1/8 inch tip to burn holes in the plastic sandwich containers. This overlaps with only the lower end of the SHB size distribution. The bees were killed by drowning in leak water that accumulated on the top of the plastic traps. The next design iteration will have rounded tops and 3/16 inch holes.
Quote from: FRAMEshift on October 19, 2010, 11:45:20 AM
Quote from: caticind on October 19, 2010, 10:01:21 AM
My dad had made two Sonny-Mel traps, but they killed more bees than SHB - not sure what the design flaw was.
Dad here. Apparently the holes were a bit too small to let the SHBs in. I used a soldering iron with a 1/8 inch tip to burn holes in the plastic sandwich containers. This overlaps with only the lower end of the SHB size distribution. The bees were killed by drowning in leak water that accumulated on the top of the plastic traps. The next design iteration will have rounded tops and 3/16 inch holes.
A picture is worth a 1000 words :-D
Tom