Makes sense. I've been doing it wrong a few years I guess. My thinking was it was easier for bees to walk in and out if the notch is facing down. I appreciate this insight though.
Hi from central Otago southern New Zealand 👋 😃 You're not an idiot, it happens. You can't find her for love or money for a couple of inspections and then all of a sudden, bang, there she is and shes started laying again 😂 not jumping the gun is great advice because for some strange reason some queens just stop laying and you can't find her🤦😃👋
Don't be so quick to call yourself an idiot. I got good at finding queens. My own queens, I sometimes struggle with. If you find eggs, larvae of all stages and capped brood, you can be sure that your hive it queen right.
This year I've had a few weird queen experiences. 1 colony had queen cells. Eventually, some were capped and destroyed. No eggs for a few weeks. So, I was sure they had swarmed/requeened. 1 month later, eggs again, no QCs. And there's the original marked queen, wandering around the hive.
Funny, I just had a similar experience with a hobbyists hive😂 trying to fix a mess in mid winter with a single brood management hive that he'd left the excluder and a full depth super on, found a torn queen cell, couldn't find the queen, no brood either, but they weren't acting queenless. I think I just missed her, and she's lost a little weight and managed to get through the excluder 😂
by taking the frame out and laying it right on the top with out checking it first, if there was a Q on it, she could have easily jumped off and went down in the chamber without you knowing it.
The gentleness on that first hive and that queens pattern …. Very very nice. I would make notes to watch that queen she may be a possible breeder to graft from.
This is a great video on how NOT to install an ice maker. Literally every step, technique and most importantly the material used is completely the way I keep busy and make money. Thank you for the misleading information
Great comment. She has been there for 4 weeks. They have tried to supersede her. She has not laid. I fed them for the first two weeks and previous four weeks. I think the most telling signs is that they are trying to replace her.
I enjoy your relaxed inspection videos. It's like I get to do an inspection while I'm house cleaning and doing other tasks. Otherwise, I only get 3 hrs a week at the apiray. You've inspired me to investigate getting a chest mount for my phone, so I can also film my inspections.
This is my first year. Started with a five frame nuc. Put it in a 10 frame langstroth. After two weeks I felt like it was a pretty aggressive hive. A month in I was able to purchase a mated queen and split my original hive on my property. The split bees didn't swarm back and accepted the new queen. Put a second deep on the original. Bought another hive. Queen left or died. Grabbed a frame of brood from the aggressive hive and placed it right next door. The bees watching the brood immediately set to make a new queen and didn't return to the original hive. Had a local seasoned beekeeper come to treat the hives. He went back to his truck for gloves because of the aggressive hive. Been working with bees for decades and said it was pretty aggressive. X-) I'm keeping that hive anyway. Maybe they'll be strong enough to get through the winter.
Yes definitely. I have been feeding them non stop since I installed. They came pretty close to being honey bound. Instead of using the feed to draw our comb they were storing it.
