Our New Royalty!

[DrKurtG]

She appears fat and happy. I think I caught her laying eggs. Click on image to enlarge.

[JP]

Great catch, Dr.G, may I call you Dr.G ?

[topbarslo]

She is fat :D

What kind of bees are those ?

[DrKurtG]

You may call me anything you like, within reason. :-D Not sure what kind of bees they are. I ordered 3 pounds from Walter Kelly and they sent me these. Sorry for not being able to answer your question but we are very new to this. Loving the heck out of it, but still on the steep end of the learning curve.

[DayValleyDahlias]

What a pretty queen, and the girls look good too...isn't it amazing?

[Bennettoid]

I see a Varroa Mite.



















Just kidding.

[BBHJ]

 :shock:
Shes fatter than any queen of ours, that I've seen anyway.

Youll be fine at beekeeping as long as you always remember two things. IMO of corse.
1 - Beekeepeing is mostly all common sense. like I said to me it is anyway. (The problem that I see everyday at work, in public while shopping ect. is that now days I think common sense is something that ALOT of people are lacking. I'm not just talking about beekeeping common sense. Just common sense in general about everything & anything. Just common sense period).

2- Honeybees are very very smart creatures. When dealing with them though dont over think things all because of you knowing that they are very smart. I guess what I'm saying is let them be honeybees, no matter what a beekeeper does for or to the bees they are going to act/be honeybees anyway. In a way this is kind of the same thing as above about common sense .

[gottabee]

Congrats. She's very photogenic!
I hope you will continute to enjoy beekeeping through its many rewards and challenges. It has certainly a roller coaster ride for me filled with highs and lows. I love it and have abandoned my other hobbies for it: golf, fishing, and womenizing. Okay okay I really gave up womanizing because my wife told me to.
Lots of Luck.

[Cindi]

Bummer!!!  I can't see the picture.  I think my laptop still has some issues with that gateway timeout or something.  I see it is still downloading a picture from imageshack.  It has been several minutes now.  Oh well, maybe another time, have a wonderful day.  Great life.  Cindi

[DrKurtG]

Thank you all for the very kind comments and for the support! I think my next step is to simply leave them alone. I have added a second deep and a super and will let them do their thing in order to prep for the winter. I will do my weekly checks for mites, etc but other than that, hands off until Spring. I have a second hive waiting in the wings and will decide in the Spring whether to split or order a new Queen and three more pounds.

Thanks again for the help - Dr. G.

[JP]

Dr. G, you mentioned you added a second deep and a super. Can we assume that the first and second deeps have been mostly drawn out by the bees? If they haven't and forgive me for not knowing your hive's progression, you have given them too much space, too soon, and this can lead to problems.

[DrKurtG]

No, the first deep is completely drawn out. I replaced three frames in that one with new frames and placed the three drawn out frames in the second deep. I actually have removed the super. I first posted on this site a few weeks ago that I had a swarm and that the brood chamber appeared crowded with pollen, honey, etc. The advice I got was to add a second deep.

[JP]

DR.G, so what's the status on the first deep, now? Have they drawn out the 3 frames that you removed and replaced? And what's going on in the 2nd? Do you have nectar present now? If not you will have to feed them for the bees to draw out the frames in the top deep. You don't want an excessive amount of space going into winter.

[DrKurtG]

Hey JP. My son just came up with a great idea. We're going to go into both brood chambers, number each frame, and then keep a written as well as an online journal of each frames progress. We are planning to do that this afternoon, if it doesn't rain. I will post a report so that you can tell the status of each brood chamber.

[DrKurtG]

OK. Frames 3, 5, and 7 from the lower brood chamber look like this...Click on images to enlarge.







The bees are somewhat active in the upper brood chamber. We also found an empty Queen cell on one of the frames that we transfered from the lower to the upper brood chamber. This may be the one that the current Queen emerged from and we just didn't see it before.

[randydrivesabus]

where in SWVA are you from doc? i am in floyd co.

[DrKurtG]

Haha. Wonderful. I just sent you a private message...

[Cindi]

DrKurtG.  Nice pictures that you have taken, I think the eyes showing above the frame make a really cute picture, they look good.   Have a wonderful day, great life.  Cindi