July 9, 2011 Part III

Inspection of Queen Elizabeth I

She is just a little slower than Hippolyta.  The top super only had some drawn combs and none of the honey was  capped yet.  I moved on to the next box and found it completely drawn and with capped brood in the centre frames.  What I found between the two boxes was a bunch of drone cells.  Because it was all stuck together, I pulled the drone cells apart when removing the frames.  I took a few out with my capping scraper to check for mites just in case.  Here are pictures of the drone cells which are bigger than cells for the workers since the drones are so big...you can see the larvae where the wax cell was pulled off.  Also a picture of capped honey from the next box just to show that Elizabeth is capable.

Drone cells at bottom of frame

Full frame of capped honey for the bee winter feeding

While I was in the hives I noticed that there were a lot of drones hanging around which was new to me.  I have since discovered that the drones only go out in the afternoon between 1 and 4 pm and that virgin queens go out at the same time to make sure that they meet and do what has to be done.  Here's a picture of a drone for you to look at.  They are larger, mine have black abdomens and have very big eyes.  All the drones do is fertilize the queen.  They are fed and cleaned up after by the workers (females).  To give them their due, if the drone does get to fertilize a queen, it is the last thing he will ever do since their reproductive organs are torn out in doing so.

Drone is in bottom left hand corner

When I got to the bottom box it looked great BUT I found queen cells with larvae in them.  I panicked and cut them off since I know that it usually means that the colony is thinking about swarming.  I was not expecting to have to deal with swarming in my first season of bee keeping.  As I considered this in the hot afternoon sun the sweat poured down my face and I felt my resolve faltering.  Did I mention the weight of the boxes with honey and bees in them?  They are at least 60 pounds...just about as much as I can handle.Was I mad to try bee keeping? 

 I put Elizabeth back together and didn't give her another box since she is slower and went inside to check my books and write Rich about my findings:  Larvae nice and plump and white...queen cells with larvae eeek!

There are as many opinions on what to do about potential swarming as there are bee keepers!  I am going to go with Rich's opinion and split the colony.  Pretty exciting stuff for a 6 week old bee keeper...it also means figuring out another hive.   Read my next blog for this new adventure.