Beekeeping it’s the bee’s knees

The bees got an addition installed yesterday. I did my inspection and just since last week they've finished filling the frames in the first deep super with comb and had started building burr comb on the underside of the lid. So I scraped the burr comb (fortunately it was just partial cells, nothing complete and occupied yet) and added the second deep super. I'm excited to see how far they've gotten by next weekend.

 

Had an interesting day this past Saturday... my local beekeeping club acquired a colony of feral bees in an oak tree a couple of months ago. We all spent this past Saturday cutting them out and transferring the colony into hive bodies. The amount of comb and massive number of drones was staggering! Didn't see the queen on the move, but she must have gotten into the deep, since they quickly moved in (over a couple of hours after cracking it open.)

 

OMG, you don't wear gloves or any protection? Never thought that would be a safe option.

Very interesting hobby though. I am allergic along with my daughter. She is bad enough she has to keep an eppi pin with her.

 

Very cool.

 

How did you get it open without making them very angry?

 

Very, very carefully... Really though; these were some of the calmest bees I have ever seen. We barely smoked them and that was after whacking that log open with chainsaw, mattock, maul and wedge, sledge, etc... It was astounding how they had completely coated the interior of the cavity with propolis and built their comb with the contours of the cavity.

 

Did they have eggs and brood?

 

I see it in the pics now

 

I got my first package of bees about a month ago, enjoyed them so much a bought a second! I could watch these things all day.

 

Subbed.

Cool thread!

 

Well welcome to the club. And we thought Tacoma were expensive, my 2 have turned in to 18

 

Some nucs for fall splits 8 more to make

 

so does one hive like that have one queen or is there multiple?

 

Should have only one unless it has a Supersedure queen the mother daughter can co exist for a little. Mostly have one queen

 

There were multiple opened queen cells in this colony but that was likely due to age more than anything else. The age of the comb, combined with how extensively they had treated and sealed that cavity tells me that they've been in there a long time. May have swarmed a few times and replaced queens along the way...

 

On the trailer will pick up later tonight. 4 foot long log, more to follow on cut out

 

Are those vertebrae in the first picture?

 

thats what I was thinking...maybe a snake?

 

Yes it was a opossum that had died just picked up at 2030.

 

Yikes. I'm surprised the bees built in a cavity with that in there, for putrefaction reasons. Similarly surprised if they killed it and then didn't abandon the hive, for the same reason. An Opossum is too big to seal up in propolis and mummify like a mouse, I would think?