I want to start off by thanking everyone for your birthday wishes! I was not expecting that since I've gotten off my own personal social media account!
Filler comb
The area where the bees in this hive were being territorial was seemingly expanding as they began to settle into the hive. My teacher and mentor had said that if we lived a mile in the woods, he would tell me to walk another half mile in and drop the hive and only go back to it a couple times a year to harvest honey. The aggressive bees produce honey like it’s their job… well, it is, but they are far more productive than a less aggressive hive. Unfortunately, there’s really no place for a colony that’s that territorial in an urban setting.
The queen cell is the long one that looks like a finger.
In this video, we’ll see if the ladies have given me a birthday present by accepting their new queen and releasing her from the cage she was added in. It’s been about 5 days since we put her in. Typically, the release should only take 3 days, so I thought we should definitely see her out of her case. I poked my head in the hive at day 3, and she still wasn't out yet.
One of the reasons I was worried that releasing the queen took longer than the expected 3 days, is because of something called bee space. Bees need 3/5 of an inch to move around. Any more than that and they will fill it with comb. The bees did not disappoint. They left a few chunks of filler comb where we removed a frame to make room for the queen case!
Bee assist
With the absence of the queen and her being in her case for so long, the bees also begin creating queen cells. Why wouldn't we just let them create their own queen? All the bees in the hive are descendent of the queen. Since they all have the aggression of the queen we had to kill, we don't want them creating an equally aggressive queen to replace her.
After rooting through the hive, I found that though the queen seems to be accepted, she still isn't free from her casing. So we gave her a little assist by poking the fondant away from the opening to free her.
Stay tuned! We'll be checking for honey and making sure the queen is still alive and well in the coming weeks!
~Chris, The Boxing Beekeeper
In this video, we’ll see if the ladies have given me a birthday present by accepting their new queen and releasing her from the cage she was added on. It’s been about 5 days since we put her in. Typically, the release should only take 3 days, so we should definitely see her out of her case.