Making ma nucs!!!

[Cindi]

Eeks, what a day, who said that making nucs is easy?  Huh, come on, who said that?  I hear of someone like you Dallas, that makes like a hundred in a day, what gives with that.

I received the 10 queens from Strachan Apiaries on Friday and thought that Saturday I would make 4 nucs.  I think that I must be still in that school of hard knocks, because let me tell ya, making 2 nucs was a long time coming, I think I must be slow, like a snail or something. 

Firstly, to get everything together to have the nuc boxes all in order in the apiary was a deal, getting the sugar syrup in the deep frame was an ordeal, and the pollen patties were a flop.  So, that started my day off to a great one, hee, hee. By 2:00 I was ready to make some nucs.  There was a million other things I had to ready before I actually got to making them too.  Like asking my poor old Husband to remake the division boards so they touched the top of the bottom board so the bees all stayed in the confined area.  Ooops, did I mention that I only have deeps?  Well, that is what I use here, 10 frame deeps, yep, yep.  I can still lift these with ease (but not if there are honey filled, of course).  I was making 5 frame nucs so I wanted that division board to be in place so that they only had 1/2 the box to live in.  So, that took a while to convince him that I needed some help.

I try to do stuff myself, but I am lost when it comes to using any kind of apparatus that cuts wood, and I value my hands and fingers, hee, hee.

To make a very, very long story short.  It took me about 2 hours to make 2 nucs.  Yep, I am slow, guess I am too meticulous and nosey and I want to examine the colonies really well, so I nosed about in these two colonies, whilst deciding what frames and what bees to give to each nuc.  I saw some pretty interesting stuff, and in the end did the deep spring inspection, reversing chambers and cleaning the bottomboards, which were pretty ucky!!!  Those two colonies have now been taken care of, and the next nice day, which I hope is today, I will inspect the other 5 colonies and finish off making two more nucs.

One of the colonies I only took a frame of brood from and a shake of bees.  It was not a colony that I would have liked to take any more stuff from.  The the second colony scared the living daylights out of me.  It is the colony that I had overwintered in 2007 using a tiny terrarium heater.  It was the colony that I had to make a cut down split from and then it swarmed in September.  This colony is scarey big!!!  It is in three deeps.  I had united another colony that was queenless with it and never got around to taking off the third box, bad me.  Thank goodness I didn't.  This super colony had brood in all three boxes.  The queen was in the bottom box and all three boxes had masses of brood in them and honey to boot.  Scarey......no queen cells, not in any kind of swarming mind....yet.

I took 3 frames of brood, adhering bees and several frames of shaken bees and put into the nucs.  This hive needs bee population control in a massive way.  That was done.  I had found the queen in the bottom box, remember this is 3 boxes high, and of course she had to be in the bottom.  Once I found her and put the frame she was in into the "safe" box, then I was free to go wild with this colony, hee, hee, no bees killed that I am aware of, (what a stupid statement that was, I am sure that I probably crushed a few while moving boxes).

I watched the queen in this colony.  She was so busy laying eggs and so fastly, (good word eh), that she didn't even take time to inspect the cells that she was laying in.  I found that rather strange, because I thought that the queen inspected every cell before she laid an egg in them.  But she didn't, I watched her for a few minutes and she just moved from cell to cell.  Well, I shouldn't embellish so much, I saw her lay in three cells consecutively.  This is a very busy gal.  I wonder because she wasn't inspecting each cell if she was laying drone or worker.  That puzzles me slightly, but oh well, she obviously knows what she is doing.  Three boxes of brood is pretty good.  And the honey stores that they had, they must all be pretty busy doing something.

This queen was a weird looking thing.  I am pretty sure she was not the original queen that was hived in the spring of 2006 with the package bees.  She was a funny colour.  I took some pictures of her, and her abdomen had some very distinct dark rings compared to the rest of her abdomen, which was lighter,see if you can see the colour in the picture, it kind of showed up.  So, that was my experience in the apiary yesterday.  Everything is all set up and ready to move into doing the next two nucs that I want to do, if the weather is good.

The weather was great yesterday, t-shirt weather and I didn't wear my bee suit, just the veil, it was far too warm for the bee suit.  Only got 2 stings on my fingers, and one on my bicep, that one hurt for a minute.  The last one was when a bee landed in the fuzzy part of my hair at the base of my neck when I was relaxing when I was done, I heard it get stuck and was waiting for the sting, yep.  I couldn't see it so I just pulled the bee off and I think the stinger stayed in for a few minutes because I couldn't feel it, then I pulled it out, yes, I pulled it out, I couldn't scrape it because it was hidden, hee, hee.  So, lots of BVT yesterday, can't wait for more today. 

I really want my Husband to construct a frame holder to hang on the hives so I can take better pictures, but he is a busy dude, he can't stop the renovations in our house, he is addicted.......
Have the best of this wonderful and beautiful day, Cindi

[HAB]

Great Post! Loved the Pic's! :)

[poka-bee]

Wonderful pics!  Good luck w/your nucs today!  It is overcast but warm here so should be likewise there???
Jody

[Tucker1]

Cindi:  Those are wonderful pictures. You may have problems with carpentry, but you're certainly talented with the camera.

Regards,
Tucker

[Brian D. Bray]

I love it, you caught the queen on her throne with her pants down.  Nice looking queen, BTW.  If the workers are up to snuff and have good hygenic properties the queen doesn't always take the time to inspect each individual cell she lays in, she takes her subjects word.

When you're down I'll have to show you the easy split method.  10 minutes each, max.

[Cindi]

Thanks guys for the compliments.  That is one beauty of a gal I would say, yep, I would venture the colony is very hygenic, if she feels that she doesn't need to inspect.  I couldn't believe how fast she laid an egg and went right back onto the next cell as soon as she could move her abdomen into it, was truly an amazing gal.  I might take a video of her one day, just for the fun of it, hee, hee.

Brian I would love for you to show me the 10 minute split, like I said I am slow as the molasses that run in January, hee, hee.  Beautiful day in this greatest of our lives.  Cindi

[JP]

Nice pics, beautiful queen. Thanks for sharing Cindi.


...JP