Here's the Queen

Today I removed the hive feeders from both hives. Now my babies are on their own.

A friend advised that Basswood trees are offering nectar right now among various other plants, even alphalfa (that is if the farmer doesn't cut it down before it blooms which he usually will).

(Isn't this queen lovely? She's got a very long abdomen and a dot of yellow paint on her back. I was glad to see her because I hadn't seen her for about 3 weeks when doing inspections - I looked for brood and eggs and found them so I didn't tear the hive apart just to see her).

The bees have been very busy in both honey supers drawing comb on the plastic foundation I gave them.

Hive #2 had 6 of 10 frames drawn with nectar in the central 3 frames. Nothing is capped yet and no signs of brood, eggs, larvae or the queen--I don't have a queen excluder on the hive so as to allow the bees to move freely to draw the comb.

Another thing I did on my friend Henry's advice was to add a 10th frame to the honey super. I had placed 9 frames which is what most beekeepers do. They use 9 frames so the bees will build the comb out a little more. That means when the cappings are cut off there's more wax.

Henry suggested adding the 10th frame just at the beginning while they're drawing the comb, otherwise they could draw it out wonky. So I gently shifted the frames over so that the 10th could fit in (glad I didn't nail in those frame holders that run along the inside edge - they only allow for 9 frames).

Hive #1 was the same as #2 except that they had about 5 frames of drawn comb done and the queen was in the super, wandering around looking for a spot to lay eggs.

I was tempted to grab her and put her down in the deep but I didn't. It's probably time to put the excluder in on that hive.

I figure that both hives will have the magic number of 7 of 10 frames drawn in the next few days so at that time I should probably put the queen excluder on and then add another honey super.

It's been a real thrill to see the bees making honey and I'm very proud of their hard work.

Once I put on the second super I hope to put in a few frames that are blank so that the bees will create honeycomb.

I'm presuming that their production of wax from here on will depend on their ability to find nectar so that they can produce the wax. Now it'll be up to them and mother nature. I'm sure glad the bees know what they're doing.

Ferguson's Apiary in Hensall Ontario

Last summer (2008), the Elgin, Middlesex and Oxford Bee Association had a meeting at Bill Ferguson's apiary in Hensall Ontario(http://www.fergusonapiaries.on.ca/).

The weather cooperated beautifully and we spent part of the day touring a few of his 700 hives.

Bill breeds and sells Buckfast queens and he showed us his queen rearing operation.

His wife works in the small shack in the bee yard where she selects bee larvae to place inside the little starter cups that will be placed inside his nucs.

I watched while she used a pen-like instrument with a goose feather tip to gently lift a clump of royal jelly with a bee larvae into the little cups.

She commented that if she touches the larvae at all by accident then they don't use it.

These starter cups (this is a term I made up because at the moment I can't recall what they should be called) will be created into supercedure cells by the bees inside the nucs.

The peanut shaped large supercells are larger than a cell for a regular worker bee--that's to make room for the queen's bigger abdomonen.

As you can see from the photos, Bill creates these really cute "mini nucs" that he uses to raise his queens.

The gals in our group (myself included) thought these little Barbie doll size hive boxes were very sweet, especially with the pink and purple paint.

For comb, they make small frames to fit the hive boxes.

They use a small piece of wax comb as a starter strip for the bees to build their comb on.

Inside the mini nuc Bill puts a Styrofoam cup with sugar water for the bees as a built in feeder.

I enjoy the interesting colours that beehives were painted with. A beekeeper confessed to me that the colours are usually whatever paint is on sale at the paint store.

The honey house was a real commercial operation with equipment for large beekeeping operations complete with a warm room to help keep that honey flowing.

Although we brought veils and hats, no one wore them--and they weren't needed.

It was a hot and sunny day and the bees were happy to be flying about their business gathering pollen and nectar.

Outside one of the hives was a large mass of bees, some of them in a ball shape.

There was some speculation as to what exactly was going on, whether they were actually balling the queen or whether they were outside the hive because they'd been irritated by a predator such as a skunk.

It was a very interesting day and I enjoyed an opportunity to see a larger beekeeping operation.