I have mixed feelings about finding queens. For the most part as long as I see eggs and brood I could care less. But after the study I read about requeening packages I need to find them for reequeening. If I am in the hive anyway I usually make a half hearted look. If I find her fine if I don't that's OK too. What are other peoples thoughts on this? I have not done any queen rearing yet... That would be the other time finding her would be important.
I have not had a problem finding her on my TBH combs. Easy peasy. Lang frames seem to be more difficult. I will say this, within 10-15 seconds she's on the other side from where I'm looking. Modest lady.
Eric,
I am the same way. When I inspect a hive, usually because i detect a problem, I only inspect until I see eggs/young larvae. If I see the queen, that is fine, eggs and the egg pattern tell more of the story.
When I find the queen I usually marker her.
Sometimes when I see eggs, if the pattern is not great I Will continue to inspect to see if there is a good pattern on other frames. Sometimes one area is scattered and another area looks good.
Jim
Maggiesdad I have not had trouble finding her on frames but I have long hives that I am constantly expanding the brood nest. It takes a while to look at all the combs. I probably should mark her... But I think I should practice on drones first.
I know that I'm a full blown noob and spend way too much time with my hives open (probably should have built an observation hive :tongue:) but I'm really enjoying this learning process. It seems to me that I can anticipate now which combs she's going to be on, by the brood status. Most likely I'm just fooling myself.
I have been trying to convince my wife to let me have an observation hive in the living room... Her two objections are she doesn't want to hear buzzing and she thinks people will think we are weird having a bee hive in the living room. I don't really care if people think I am weird... I don't think the buzzing would be an issue either. She said I could make one if I could hide it behind something that looks like it is supposed to be there. So I was thinking about making something that swivels out on one side to cover it and then it would swivel on the other side so I could see both sides.
Share the plans when you do it! G
Oh and do the clear hose and valve thing over to the breakfast nook. It'll be a great conversation starter... nobody needs to know about the gallon jug up in the top. :cheesy:
Quote from: Eric Bosworth on June 29, 2015, 05:44:57 AM
I have long hives that I am constantly expanding the brood nest.
Be careful with this. I was doing this too with the intent of avoiding swarms and getting comb drawn. It worked until they decided the brood nest was too big and swarmed themselves to death. Their last queen did not emerge and they moved into an overnight SHB death before the I got another laying queen in there.
Not only did I loose the hive, I had just borrowed an extractor and discovered the loss when I went out to pull frames. The things ruined a full super of honey! :cry:
I suppose if we don't make rookie mistakes then we're no longer a rookie, but I can't claim that yet.
Humm I will have to keep that in mind
Looking for, and spotting the queen is good practice any time your in a hive. That does nto mean you MUST spot her, but each time you do find her it becomes easier to pick her out of a crowd..
As said, all you need to see is eggs, but while your looking you may as well LOOK so when when the time comes you Need to find/move her you dont have to struggle as much.
Quote from: OldMech on June 30, 2015, 10:25:26 AM
Looking for, and spotting the queen is good practice any time your in a hive. That does nto mean you MUST spot her, but each time you do find her it becomes easier to pick her out of a crowd..
As said, all you need to see is eggs, but while your looking you may as well LOOK so when when the time comes you Need to find/move her you dont have to struggle as much.
I totally agree. That is why I take the approach of looking but not thinking it is a requirement... So long as there are eggs. She really isn't that hard to find but it is kind of like looking for Waldo in a room full of Waldos.
Quote from: Eric Bosworth on June 29, 2015, 12:01:46 PM
I have been trying to convince my wife to let me have an observation hive in the living room... Her two objections are she doesn't want to hear buzzing and she thinks people will think we are weird having a bee hive in the living room. I don't really care if people think I am weird... I don't think the buzzing would be an issue either. She said I could make one if I could hide it behind something that looks like it is supposed to be there. So I was thinking about making something that swivels out on one side to cover it and then it would swivel on the other side so I could see both sides.
Eric,
I had the same problem with my wife when I started building my observation hive. I kept hearing, "that's not going in my house"
make it look good, like a nice piece of furniture.
I first put it on the table at our farm house, with bees in it, for a big party we used to have every year. Again I heard the familiar phrase... On the way home from the farm, she asked where I wanted to put it. I put it on our closed in patio.
It was not long before she decided it was her hive. She takes every first time visitor out there to show it off. It is a great conversation piece.
She also started helping me work on the OH and now quite often helps me with my regular hives.
Don't give up.
Jim
Quote from: sawdstmakr on June 30, 2015, 12:51:45 PM
Eric,
I had the same problem with my wife when I started building my observation hive. I kept hearing, "that's not going in my house"
make it look good, like a nice piece of furniture.
I first put it on the table at our farm house, with bees in it, for a big party we used to have every year. Again I heard the familiar phrase... On the way home from the farm, she asked where I wanted to put it. I put it on our closed in patio.
It was not long before she decided it was her hive. She takes every first time visitor out there to show it off. It is a great conversation piece.
She also started helping me work on the OH and now quite often helps me with my regular hives.
Don't give up.
Jim
Do you have pictures of yours? How many frames is it? I am trying to decide what I want when I build one. I know I only want one frame deep. From there however I am a bit fuzzy. I want it to be easy to take outside to work on it but I still want it big enough to be a decent size hive. I am figuring at least 4 frames. What I started building was 2'X4' (that was the size plexiglas I had.) I figuring I would use the extra space on the side to build some type of feeder. I will have to read your comment to my wife. Right now probably isn't the best time because she is pretty mad at me at the moment. I was thinking I could make a clock that would be on the outer cover so that it wouldn't look like a bee hive in the living room. Still trying to figure out the hinge issue however. If I had a closed in porch or patio that might be an option. Unfortunately I don't. I did have a nucleus colony on my deck for a while last summer that I was trying to rebuild after a bear attack. She didn't seem to mind that much. If that was ok then I might be able to put something else out there. My concern is the winter. I don't know how it would handle the winter short of taking the frames out and putting them in a nuc box... Perhaps adding a second story with some honey frames.
While an admittedly new beek, with my eye sight I'm more likely to find the queen before I see eggs. Even with cheaters on and the sun over my shoulder. I have the hardest time seeing eggs.
Deep creek.. its like looking for morel mushrooms.. they are a PAIN to spot, but once you do, they are everywhere!!
Eric.. i have an OB hive in my living room window.. There have been times it was annoying, but in general, it has been a wonderful thing. My wife also loves to show it off when company arrives.. she has little to do with my bees, but when she uncovers tghe OB hive i am often amazed at how much she has learned from a distance!
http://www.outyard.net/observation-hive.html
Eggs are tiny but if you know what to look for they are easy to spot. I saw a video on queen rearing that recommended black plastic frames for grafting because the contrast is easier to see. That could be true but I haven't had a problem seeing eggs yet.
if you're finding plenty of eggs and larvae why do you feel like you need to re-queen?
10framer I read a study of overwinter survivability of nucs, packages, and packages that were requeened with local queens. The requeened packages had the best survivability.
ok, that's what i figured. GOOD local stock is always better but know your source. if you've got queens that are doing well don't crush them to replace them with poorly bred locals. i'd make a nuc or two and keep the package queens in reserve if i were you.
Eric, are they built up enough to split? Then you could do a study. I'm like 10 framer, hate to waste a good queen, like you said, locals are the best in My opinion, but if she overwintered successfully, you would have her to breed out daughters to feral stock for a little diversity. If she didnt overwinter, you really just lost a couple frames of bees. Of course if the mother hive isn't strong enough to split, this is a moot point. . G
You are quick 10 framer!! I was typing too slow. I agree. G
I was actually planning that. I was thinking I would try Michael Palmer's overwinter nucs approach.
I overwintered some singles last year that easily could have been compressed into nucs. We had a long cold winter for our climate, and they came thru fine. I am splitting, and making up some nucs with mated queens, and some with cells after the flow is over to get my hive count closer to my target. I dont foresee any problem here overwintering nucs, Michael Palmer has a great program. Also his climate is similar to yours. I think his lessons will serve you well. G
Michael Palmer's climate is very similar if anything it is worse than here. He is a little further north.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesobservationhives.htm
Quote from: Michael Bush on July 07, 2015, 08:43:23 AM
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesobservationhives.htm
I just need to convince my wife to let me have it in the living room...
Quote from: Eric Bosworth on June 30, 2015, 03:24:50 PM
Quote from: sawdstmakr on June 30, 2015, 12:51:45 PM
Eric,
I had the same problem with my wife when I started building my observation hive. I kept hearing, "that's not going in my house"
make it look good, like a nice piece of furniture.
I first put it on the table at our farm house, with bees in it, for a big party we used to have every year. Again I heard the familiar phrase... On the way home from the farm, she asked where I wanted to put it. I put it on our closed in patio.
It was not long before she decided it was her hive. She takes every first time visitor out there to show it off. It is a great conversation piece.
She also started helping me work on the OH and now quite often helps me with my regular hives.
Don't give up.
Jim
Do you have pictures of yours? How many frames is it? I am trying to decide what I want when I build one. I know I only want one frame deep. From there however I am a bit fuzzy. I want it to be easy to take outside to work on it but I still want it big enough to be a decent size hive. I am figuring at least 4 frames. What I started building was 2'X4' (that was the size plexiglas I had.) I figuring I would use the extra space on the side to build some type of feeder. I will have to read your comment to my wife. Right now probably isn't the best time because she is pretty mad at me at the moment. I was thinking I could make a clock that would be on the outer cover so that it wouldn't look like a bee hive in the living room. Still trying to figure out the hinge issue however. If I had a closed in porch or patio that might be an option. Unfortunately I don't. I did have a nucleus colony on my deck for a while last summer that I was trying to rebuild after a bear attack. She didn't seem to mind that much. If that was ok then I might be able to put something else out there. My concern is the winter. I don't know how it would handle the winter short of taking the frames out and putting them in a nuc box... Perhaps adding a second story with some honey frames.
Could you take a nuc and just put a window on the side? or just get like a 8 or 10 frame and put the window on that also i have one question about nucs and or OH how do you prevent them from swarming.
Quote from: Football928 on July 07, 2015, 10:42:40 AM
i have one question about nucs and or OH how do you prevent them from swarming.
It depends on your goals. If you want to keep expanding your apiary then you can keep a close eye on them and when they start to get ready to swarm split them into new boxes. The issue here is timing and with an OH you can watch them all the time so you can tell when to do it.
"Could you take a nuc and just put a window on the side? or just get like a 8 or 10 frame and put the window on that also i have one question about nucs and or OH how do you prevent them from swarming."
Football,
You could do that but you will not be able to see much unless you used foundation less frames. Normally the outer frames do not have much activity until they are getting close to being ready to swarm. With foundation less, you would see them build each frame.
With my OH, I can see when they start getting runny and split them. I also like to bee able to watch the swarm progress and then we usually can hear them take off and catch them. Out of 6 swarms, we have only had 2 get away. My wife has heard them all the way in the main house when they take off.
We did try to split before they swarmed this year and then they kept swarming, 3 times, until I removed 10 queen cells. By then it was too late and the bugs took over.
Jim