Category: Bee Keeping Journal

Metal Queen excluder was added to Dakota18B and top super opened. Dakota18B colony was not inspected due to emergency queen cells discovered during last inspection.

Swarm was caught at the Smith building grounds swarm catcher. Swarm catcher was constructed of 2 horticultural pots wired together and hoisted up into the tree. Simple lemon grass oil bait was used. Swarm was a average size. Colony was installed into a Langstroth deep brood chamber at Niagara.

Wild17 hive opened and 4th warre box added to bottom.

WildCA18A colony was moved to Barrett house. Hive moved was 2 warre boxes and stand. Water feeder placed below entrance of hive.

Wild17 inspected. This hive has a nasty temper when opened. Lots of smoke used. Good new comb. Hive is queen right.

WildCA18A inspected. No smoke needed. New comb looks great. Hive is queen right.

Dakota18B hive opened. No smoke needed. cross comb problem looks much better. Bees are accepting the plastic foundation. Several emergency queen cells were found. No queen can be found in the hive. Assumption is that I must have accidentally killed the queen when I was repairing the cross comb problems. The colony is making a new queen. Oops, lets not ever do that again.

Wild17 hive opened. Used more smoke than usual. Hive is queen right. Removed old rubber bands. No swarm cells present. 3 empty frames left in 3 warre boxes. 1 old worker brood frame moved to WildCA18A.

WildCA18A hive opened. No smoke needed. New comb being built. Added 1 old worker brood frame from Wild17. Took empty bottom warre box and put into Dakota18A.

Dakota18A hive opened. No smoke needed. Added empty warre box from WildCA18A. Checkerboarded 2 boxes.

Dakota18B hive cross comb problem is extremely problematic. Black plastic foundation frames which were supposedly coated with wax appear to not be adequate. Any frames which were not yet built up were removed and re-coated with beeswax. Cross comb was removed and placed into new empty frames with rubber bands. Any empty comb was pushed flat into plastic foundation. This was a very time consuming and difficult operation.

Dakota18A hive was opened. Colony is queen right. All 3 warre boxes are full will install 4th warre box soon.

Wild17 hive opened. Bees are too aggressive to properly inspect hive.

WildCA18A hive not opened, normal entrance activity.

Wild17 was treated for mites. Using oxalic acid, 2 caps, 10 minutes.

Dakota18B hive inspection performed. Colony is rejecting the plastic foundation and building terrible cross comb. Capped brood present, larva present, eggs present. Colony is assumed to be queen right. Spent time trying to correct cross comb and flatten comb into plastic foundation frames. I was fairly aggressive with the hive.