July 03, 2005

Hive inspection 3 july 05

First, I performed inspection to determine queen acceptance in A hive. We noted two distinct behaviors: some bees were inserting their proboscises into the wire mesh, and others were biting the cage. The biting behavior is bad, and indicates that the bees have not yet accepted the new queen. The bees extending their proboscises is probably a good sign, since it may mean that they are attempting to groom or feed the queen. We decided to play it safe, and leave the queen bee in her cage for a few more days.

Here is a pic of the queen cage in the hive:

On the other hive, we performed a full reversal and added a honey super on top. For a full reversal, we re-position the hive bodies so that what was the bottom hive bottom is now on top, and the top hive body is on the bottom. This is a bit of work, since those hive bodies are heavy, and three hive bodies full of bees is a lot of beeeeeees! Here is a picture of me replacing the top hive bottom into its new position on the bottom of the stack:

Posted by emer0084 at July 3, 2005 04:14 PM
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