This is a journal I will be keeping to document my experiences, both successful and unsuccessful, in beekeeping. This will be my first year, 2011, keeping bees. We'll see how it goes. I will be keeping bees naturally, letting them build on foundationless frames, and without medication. This is also my first blog I have ever done and I am by no means a journalist or English major. So, if you see grammatical errors of any and all kinds don't be surprised. The looks of things on the blog will probably change several times before I come up with something that I like.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Marked the Queen

The bee tree bees are doing great. I have been checking on them periodically to make sure they are doing good. They have only went through about 12oz. of 1:1 sugar water. They stopped drinking it sometime last week. I got a little worried about the queen last week. I did a quick inspection and couldn't find her. I looked for eggs to avail as well. (I could've just not saw them) I closed everything up and let them be for another week.

I had recently purchased a queen catcher, marking tube, and paint pen from a local supplier and decided I would delve back into the hive to see if I could find and mark her.
While looking through the frames I finally saw eggs, LOTS of them.   

It appears that she will have a great brood pattern. Apparently, I overlooked the eggs before because there were some larvae that was well along in development. Whew, that's a relief.

I have read that, when marking a queen for the first time, it's a good idea to practice first on some drones.  Now I have several marked drones in my hive.  HaHa.  Now it was time to find the queen.  I looked at each frame carefully, only to get to the last one and not find her.  So, I went back through them again scanning what seemed like each bee.and found her on frame 8.  She was a little bit skiddish of going into the marking tube, but she finally went in and I was able to get her marked and released back on the frame that she came off of. 

I have noticed that some of my drones have been flying out of the hive today and yesterday.  I can only assume that this means it is now swarm season. 

I did take a picture of some of the new, or newly reused comb that they are making.
There were some more comb that they were building that was much browner than this.  I asked on Beemaster why this would happen and learned that bees will reuse older comb to make new comb elsewhere, thus making the new comb have a brownish tint. 

They have started attaching the old comb, that was tied into the frames, so I have now removed all of the fishing line that was holding it in place.  It seems all is well so far.

Till next time, thanks for reading.

James

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4 comments:

  1. AnonymousApril 23, 2011 at 11:30 PM

    Awesome post James! I wish I had a marking set. For the first time, I have a package I just installed and the queen wasn't marked. Now I'm scared to death I'll never find her. Good luck!

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  2. The Starved IdiotApril 25, 2011 at 5:47 PM

    you revamped the look of your blog - looks great!

    thanks for passing along the info about "old-looking" new comb. will file this seed of info in the old squash.

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  3. ChristopherMay 11, 2011 at 7:56 PM

    I'm glad you were able to get your queen marked! I would very much like to get my queens marked, but fear that I would hurt/damage the queen in the process.

    Does she simply walk into the tube, and you're able to mark her no big deal?

    If so, I might have to give it a try. I've got a few other beekeeper friends I might have to have come by and watch/help me.

    Chris
    Show Me The Honey

    ReplyDelete
  4. JamesMay 14, 2011 at 1:36 PM

    Christopher, I'm not sure what happened to you comment. I will insert it here so people will not think I am crazy and talking to myself.
    "I'm glad you were able to get your queen marked! i would very much like to get my queens marked, but fear that I would hurt/damage the queen in the process.

    Does she simply walk into the tube, and you're aable to mark her no big deal?

    If so, I might have to give it a ty. I've got a few other beekeeper friends I might have to have come by and watch/help me.

    Chris"
    She didn't just walk into the tube for me. Once I caught here in the queen catcher I positioned my hand in the shape of a funnel over the queen catcher and put the tube on top. After a little bit she walked in. You then SLOWLY AND GENTLY press the plunger up capturing her thorax in one of the squares of the tube. Then mark her.

    I strongly recommend practicing on several drone until you feel very comfortable doing it.

    Mark and Luddite, as always thank you so much for you comments

    James

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