9b 2nd Year 11 Hives
I know yall said a 2strip dose would be hard on them. It was 68 degrees here on the coast. Had a high mite count on a couple and panicked. Now I’ve got dead bees everywhere. Tounges sticking out and writhing in pain. Feeling pretty defeated.
What are the odds I 86’d the queen as well? How long until I do a damage assessment inspection? Should I get on the list for new queens now?
So my pissy bees from previous post haven’t gotten better, they are now hopelessly queenless (MY TIME HAS COME!!!!)
My “model citizen” hive provided larvae free frames w only fresh eggs (because that hive rocks) and my third party donor hive built up some queen cells because they needed a queen and made extra.
Question is: will the pissy bees tear down a capped queen cell? These bitches are mean as hell, and by the time this queen would be laying in September, is it better to re-queen via a newspaper scenario??
So what’s the best option? Roll the dice on a late queen on some pissy bees or let those queen cells go towards another hive in less need of a queen but still useful ????
Zone 9b, 2nd year Beeker
Looking for a company like Blue Ridge or the like in California or nearby. Tried to order a few small things from Blue Ridge just for fun but the shipping cost more than the product.
I order from Dadant all the time but looking to support at the localist level. Eventually my retirement plan is Togo small scale commercial and sell bee stuff as a very expensive hobby, looking to front load myself on how others do it now. :)
Zone 9B, coastal California/Oregon border, second year beekeeper
I noticed about a week ago that a lot of my hives had empty frames with no eggs, I was starting to suspect that I was killing all of my queens, but just today I did an inspection on one of my recent splits, and there was a meted queen bulldozering around like she owned the place, but not actually laying. It appears in other highs that there is still nectar flowing and I’m seeing lots of pollen coming in on the field force, could there be a toxin issue and one of my neighbors Fields? Or is it normal for the nurse bees to cannibalize the eggs towards the end of the main honey flow as they get ready for the next one?
2nd Year, zone 9b Cali/oregon coastal boarder
So I got several hives setup this year and I suppose I got spoiled by good genetics and other breeders hard work. Hardly had to put a veil on and even got complacent enough to forget to zip up wo consequence.
Now for the pissy bees. I swear every time, regardless of peak flight, nectar flow, happy queen, these girls are on the offensive side of defensive when go to inspect (crawling all over super agitated while shoving thoraxes constantly trying to get them to stick). Yesterday afternoon was a) late afternoon and b) I found they may have superseded the old queen (capped cups on comb, none on bottom) but regardless HOLY HELL THEY WERE PISSED!! Got stung through my clothes several times and I have no idea how they got inside my veil but yup several stings inside my jacket. Chased me across the property around the house (the kids loved it watching from the inside), and I’m sure I was slathered in alarm pheremone but I even wore different clothes and could be within eyesight of the hive wo getting buzzed hard.
Is this normal pissy bee behavior? I’m too far north to be too worried about Africanized genetics but crikey if this is what the honey harvesters of old had to deal with when scrambling up a tree to steal some honey my hats off to our ancestors, I think I was up to about 15stings in less than five minutes before I finally gave up and ran away.
DID get my mite wash in however! For as angry as they are they sure seem to be cleanly lil buggers….
W the queen cups I was going to see what a new mated new queen does for brood and take it from there, but would it be worth it to set them queenless for a week or two and put a mellow caged queen in there???
Zone 9b northern coastal California
I’ve got my colony from last year, a walkaway split I did a few weeks ago and will inspect for eggs this weekend, got 2 packages two weeks ago and 2 Nucs yesterday, one more Nuc pickup TBD by the apiary.
Should I treat everyone I have currently now, or wait until everyone is here so they don’t drift mites to each other later?
How long should packages and Nucs “settle in” before they get their Welcome Home Gassing? Once there’s capped brood? Before brood/just eggs?