Comment

Comment by Paul McCarty on July 25, 2012 at 8:01am

Yep, those were 6th generation feral mutts. Crossed mostly with local Italians brought up here for pollination.

Comment by James H DAWDY on July 24, 2012 at 9:49pm

Yes, I requeened with Aurelio' Paez's queen.  That was on the 11th.  Left her in her cage for three days and then released her.  The bees I got from you are feral, IIRC?   They accepted her great- checked today and she is still going strong.  I did pinch all the supercedure/emergency queen cells when I put her in.

Comment by Paul McCarty on July 24, 2012 at 9:09pm

If you re-queened with one of those Paez queens - mine I got from him can be worked with no veil or anything. Totally docile. I keep trying to requeen my feral hives with them but my ferals keep killing the queens. And the little buggers are so smart they remove all the eggs first - THEN kill the queen. Guess they want another wild queen.

Comment by Rob Shepler on July 24, 2012 at 5:46pm

Yea! Great news James!

Comment by James H DAWDY on July 24, 2012 at 4:29pm

Checked mine today (despite high winds and a storm front moving in- Paul's Cut Rate Bees are extremely docile.  I think they have self-esteem issues).  They have noticeably more uncapped nectar, and some comb building.  I had noticed Saturday that there was a lot more coming-and-going too, so it looks to me like they found something flowing.

Comment by Diana Calkins on July 24, 2012 at 9:50am

Robert peeked this morning.  He didn't look at each bar to see the percentage of comb on each bar, but he did say that they have started building comb on the very first three bars, so he took those and put them toward the back and brought three empty bars up front.  All total, he believes there are at least 12 bars with comb on them.  He's had to move the temporary wall back to almost 2/3rds of the way back from the front entrance, so now there are 19 bars toward the front and 10 behind the divider wall.  I am looking forward to seeing how much is on each bar!!!  Ordering another veil/hat today so that I can peek with him next time.  I want to see exactly what kind of cells are being built and how they are occupied: honey, brood, queen?

Comment by Rob Shepler on July 24, 2012 at 8:41am

That is about what Patricia has, starts on the 8th bar. Kind of neat to compare hives of the same age from different areas. I will be interested to hear how Diana's are doing when she gets a chance to peek. Interestingly, her BW is doing better than my BW's, skill I say.

Comment by Ralph Ketter on July 24, 2012 at 8:08am

I'm glad to hear Patricia’s bees are doing well.  Mine have made a total of about 4 full new combs plus they are using the old comb I gave them for a total of about 5.  This is roughly the same amount of comb I estimated they had made in 2 weeks so little if any new comb since June 22.  I marked each bar this morning as to what percentage of comb I felt was completed.  They have comb on 9 bars but two of them are only starts of 5 or 6 square inches each.  The fullest one I rated at 90%.  On Sunday I decided to feed them some syrup so if they are inspired to build more comb at least I know they have some additional resource to do it.  We had over an inch of rain in La Luz last Wednesday but only a few sprinkles since then.  Hopefully the rains will translate into some blooms soon.

Comment by Diana Calkins on July 23, 2012 at 8:51pm

Yes, rain!  Today we got 3/10th of the wet stuff; less than a tenth yesterday. 

Comment by Rob Shepler on July 23, 2012 at 8:33pm

Rain? If you have some extra, please send it over the hill. My girls thank you kindly!

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