Wednesday, September 9, 2009

WOW...Has It Really Been This Long...UPDATE!!!

The Summer has come to an end...and it seems I haven't blogged all season! WOW

Anywho...the last blog entry, I was in the process of getting a new queen...well, let me tell you...

I was able to get a new queen from Busy Bee. I had been in such a hurry…afraid I would lose the entire hive if someone didn’t start laying eggs soon! All they had available was a virgin queen…which meant…she would need to be placed in the hive…leave the hive for her mating flight…and return to begin laying eggs…all without being eaten by a predator…WOW! I had to leave the hive alone for a couple of weeks (approx. 19 days) to allow everything to happen. When I went back into the hive, there was a little bitty bee emerging from a cell… HUH??? How is that possible? It takes 21 days for a worker to be “born”…the new queen wouldn’t have had time to get in there do everything and actually have babies emerging. Something fishy is going on! So, I went thru all of the scenarios and to this day…still can’t come up with a reasonable explanation. I just say, “Thanks, God” for keeping my hive going. It was an amazing sight to see a little bee coming out of that cell!

From that point, the Girls have been working overtime all Summer. They have made sooooo much honey …some from the sugar water but quite a bit from actual nectar…and they are still going…so I may just have a little honey this season for myself. Wouldn’t that be something!

I’m adding a medium super this week with a queen excluder (to keep the queen from laying eggs in my honey). Worst case…even if I don’t get any honey from it before it begins to get cool…they will at least start drawing out the frames with wax for the Spring.

Talk to you soon! BEE happy!

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