Received my new replacement queen today from Full Bloom Apiaries out of CT, right on time as promised. Because its so hot today, I gave her (them) some water and a drop of honey. When I opened the hive to put her in I noticed that they had begun to build down into the Octagonal hive. I had made a transition board for that purpose last year and its working just fine. I had opened up the hive yesterday to check on things and much to my surprise, there was brood comb on one frame on both sides. That couldn't have been from my transplant attempts as its to soon. There are three possibilities: 1) Maybe a laying worker, but the pattern looks to even, almost perfectly round. 2) that I had moved the queen with the TBH frame when I transferred the frame to the nuc. If I did, the TBH will make a new one. 3) and last is that for some reason the original queen just wasn't laying, which I doubt. I decided to put in the new queen anyway just to be sure. If it was either old queens then the new one will take over or maybe they will leave her alone and I'll have 2 working queens. That happened to Debra when we tried to make a nuc out of the back of her TBH. The queen move forward and the back succumbed to beetles, she checked and they are both laying. We'll see what happens.
On another note, my comments on white Oak Apiaries is getting noticed on the web. It shows up right under his ad.
The robbing has ceased on the nasty hive since I shut down the opening. Will leave it that way until they can build up their strength to protect themselves better.
PS: It's now 4:30 and for the first time since I installed the nuc there are guard bees defending the entrance. I saw no hostile activity nor threat at the entrance so maybe they are finally feeling that they could be a colony, lets hope. I thought maybe that they were fanning since its so hot, but they weren't doing that either. There are large stores of honey and my adding extra bees has kept the hive strength up even without a queen, it can only get better now. Only have the nasty hive to work on expanding now. Later
On another note, my comments on white Oak Apiaries is getting noticed on the web. It shows up right under his ad.
The robbing has ceased on the nasty hive since I shut down the opening. Will leave it that way until they can build up their strength to protect themselves better.
PS: It's now 4:30 and for the first time since I installed the nuc there are guard bees defending the entrance. I saw no hostile activity nor threat at the entrance so maybe they are finally feeling that they could be a colony, lets hope. I thought maybe that they were fanning since its so hot, but they weren't doing that either. There are large stores of honey and my adding extra bees has kept the hive strength up even without a queen, it can only get better now. Only have the nasty hive to work on expanding now. Later
If I can help you trash White Oak Fakery let me know!!
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