Robbing continues, so does teasing of Northern Hempispere Beekeepers

[Michael Bush]

Comb gets reused, of course, and old brood has cocoons in it.  Wax gets reused also and if it's old dark wax, then you get dark cappings.

[Cindi]

Michael, awesome, good to know.  Great day. Cindi

[mick]

Took American Geoffs advice and left the frame with the lil bit of nectar out for the bees to clean up.

WoW is there anything as beautiful as a perfectly drawn frame of white comb? Its incredible to think bees did this. A machine could not be as exact!

[mick]

Some pics from this mornings work and some of my finished product. I help run a site for a band called "The Sleepy jackson" www.thesleepyjackson.com. I am giving honey away in our forum for our members, something fun to do, thats why it is labelled like it is.

[mick]

Well I took some drawn frames from the hive yesterday to keep for next spring.

I thought about it overnight and decided to put them back.

I had noticed a frame that had one side of not very deep capped cells. I have concluded that they might not be drawing frames quick enough to store the honey as I had taken 6 drawn frames over the last month or so.

So it will be interesting to see how quickly they fill and cap the drawn frames I have put back in.

Here is an interesting pic of an old frame, 12 months I think, it has a few emerging brood left fighting there way out. I will remove this frame tomorrow when they have all emerged.

[Cindi]

Mick, you take some very interesting pictures.  The bees look so cute making their way out.

Check this out though.  It looks like there is only a small patch of brood area surrounded by lots of honey/nectar.  I am not sure if that is really what I see, but if it is... I have learned the hard way that it is so important to keep an "open brood nest", so that the queen does not get honeybound and does not have room to lay.  Mick, go and look to see if there is a problem with not enough room for the queen to lay (and a good laying queen too).  I think that is the MOST IMPORTANT THING ever with regard to colony expansion, for many, many reasons.

Not trying to be bossy or nosey.  But like I said, I think that is why I had so many problems and I don't want this to happen to other beekeepers.

I am positive that Idid not provide enough space for the queen to lay, the bees filled up the brood nest with nectar/honey and she could not have enough room to lay enough  eggs.  So the colonies got weaker and weaker (maybe swarmed too when my back was turned as well I bet), and then the varroa took over because the colonies were not strong. 

Failure on my part in many ways was an incredible learning curve in my beekeeping and I need to share these failures so that other beekeepers will learn by them and work hard to understand these important factors in the life of the honeybee.

Keeping uncongested brood nests, lots of room for the evaporation of nectar and good bee health as well.  All so extremely vital to the procreation of the species.  Great day.  Cindi

[Michael Bush]

>(maybe swarmed too when my back was turned as well I bet)

If the brood nest was clogged and the population dwindled, I think that's a forgone conclusion.

[Cindi]

I understand these principles now, but last year I did not.  I was pretty kniave to this bee stuff, but I am learning.  Great day.  Cindi