A queen sourced form the WildCA18A mother colony has emerged, mated and is now laying eggs. The starter colony behavior changed markedly. As if a switch was flipped the colony begun to build new comb on every possible surface. More bees seemed to have joined the starter colony. Only a few days later eggs were seen in the drawn comb. This queen and her colony are now ready for a hive.
This colony will be installed at Officer Ed’s back lot, next to his garden. This hive body was left on his property many years ago and is full of relatively clean looking comb. No infestations in the comb are observed. The hive is composed of 3 shallow super boxes. I will simply drop the frames with bees into this hive. The queen was caged and closed off with marshmallow candy plug. the chance of the colony leaving this hive with fully drawn comb and 2 frames of eggs is highly unlikely.
My Warre frames are not of standard length but are of correct depth. A hanger for the Warre frames was made which spans the opening and hangs off of the adjoining langstroth frame. The remaining space was filled with 2 small pieces of flat wood.
