Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Queens out of the cage

Today opened up the hive to see what is happening. Was anxious all day long - is the queens still there? I didn't even get a good look at the queen after I got it, I was nervous and excited to install the package. And I am happy to say that, when I examined the queen cages today, both of them have gotten out. But the only problem is, I just couldn't spot them in any of the foundations. I guess, I didn't look enough, but I have a good feeling that they are probably there. I am a little concerned that the combs are not built as many as I thought the queen would need to lay eggs, but I hope the coming out of the queen might trigger the bees to build more hives. But I did see the classic pattern of comb building - there were some honey in almost all of the more built out ones, and surprisingly spots of dark orange pollen in a few. I have kept many sugar feeders at the entrance, so I am hoping that they would build out the comb pretty nicely. I guess, I don't need to touch the hive for the next 3 weeks or so other than watching to see if the sugar intake stands at good rate.

I noticed the bees have build wax combs around the queen cage, I wonder what they were thinking.
I also found a good independent comb built between the foundations, I guess it was because, there were only 8 foundations, instead of 9 when the queen cage was in between. I guess, I forgot to count and put in the right number. I am not sure what to do with the 'burr' comb, I didn't disturb it.

Also, i have installed foundations on the honey supers, I read that the will start to store honey there, I hope it doesn't distract them from building brood comb. I have put mostly Pierco white foundations, with a few wood frames with just starter strips. I hope I didn't do anything wrong by doing that.

I also realized that initially I put the honey super upside down, when the cover didn't close, I was wondering why, and then I realized that it was put in upside down (Hem, why do you want the world the know your stupidity? )
Anway, I thought it would be a lesson to folks who come after me to take a look at how to place the super before you start installing the foundations.

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