What have you done today bee-related?

[NigelP]

That is a very good tip Adam.

[AndrewLD]

Ditto - a floor and a super would do with just a frame of uncapped rubbish - thanks Adam

Actually, today saw me taking measurements off a photo-voltaic system coupled to a High Voltage generator designed to power an electric harp - now proven to be a very effective counter to asian hornets in the apiary...... I like to test these things in our climate before suggesting they are a good option (I know the harp works but that was mains powered).

[NigelP]

The power of music

[Hbee]

Took out 6 frames of LW drone brood and popped into the freezer. (Thanks nigel)
Took a peak into a small split Nuc found a mated locally mated buckfast line queen, nice tiger stripe on a few frames of eggs needs more room, clipped and marked. https://pasteboard.co/JdQkWw6.jpg
- terrible marking with nail polish as I conveniently lost my blue paint on a swarm collection. I Have a queenless 3 frame Nuc, wondering the best most efficient way to combine the two...
Was perplexed at the hives flying in the rain...never a dull day.

[Steve 1972]

Took out 6 frames of LW drone brood and popped into the freezer. (Thanks nigel)
Took a peak into a small split Nuc found a mated locally mated buckfast line queen, nice tiger stripe on a few frames of eggs needs more room, clipped and marked. https://pasteboard.co/JdQkWw6.jpg
- terrible marking with nail polish as I conveniently lost my blue paint on a swarm collection. I Have a queenless 3 frame Nuc, wondering the best most efficient way to combine the two...
Was perplexed at the hives flying in the rain...never a dull day.

The best way i have found for uniting Nucs is to is put the nuc of bees and frames into a full size brood box the same as the one you wish to unite it too..then unite the two with a sheet of news paper between the two boxes..after a week you can go through the united colony and rearrange all the frames and remove one of the brood boxes..

[Steve 1972]

Well another eventful day Virgin Queen hunting..the first colony i went through i spotted the Queen on the sixth frame ..she looked plump and could well have been mated but she got squished anyway and a Queen right brood box on 8 frames of wall to wall brood was united over news paper and and freshener to be on the safe side...i will check on them on Monday and hopefully she is in there laying away..i will juggle the frames about and leave them on one brood box jam packed with brood and space for the Queen to lay..that will give me a very strong colony for the thistle and second phacilia flow that is sprouting up..
I went through two other colonies and could i hell find anything resembling a Queen which has me thinking the two colonies might not have a Queen as i am usually good at finding them..that is unless the little gits are sitting on the inside of the brood box..both colonies got a test frame each and i will also check that on Monday.
The brood box i have to unite one of these with is on eight frames of brood so the only thing i could do for now is stick two drawn supers on top and leave them to it for now..
The weather is looking to be great and hopefully the Virgins in the other colonies get mated and start laying before they also meet there maker.. .

[Japey Edge]

It was a naff day for me. Moved my recently re-queened hive and found queen dead on the floor when I transferred the hive to their tunnel entrance floor at the out apiary.
2 out of 4 queen introductions failed.

Now have 3 hives and 3 nucs. One hive and one nuc have bought in queens. The others are queenless or there's a virgin in there.
Time to unite/sell up.

[AndrewLD]

Moved my recently re-queened hive and found queen dead on the floor when I transferred the hive to their tunnel entrance floor at the out apiary.
2 out of 4 queen introductions failed.
Time to unite/sell up.

Happens to all of us but, on the face of it - 2 out of four failures suggests a quick review of what you are doing. I can't say from here but maybe talk through your procedure with an experienced beekeeper perhaps? and introductions aren't just about method, timing can be important too, and then there are the colonies that just don't want outsiders coming in. I had one of those, united over newspaper and then sat and watched as they stopped the new foragers coming into the hive, killing them one by one until there was a little heap of dead bees and an empty brood box sitting over the QX.....

But just on another note, what are you marking your queens with or did she come marked like that? I ask because someone mentioned nail polish a few posts ago and that must surely be a quick way to get a queen killed. Waterbased paint, no solvents and certainly nothing that smells so the workers kill her straight away and that is not even stopping to think what might get into the queen........ Of course it wasn't you??????

[Steve 1972]

We think we have it worked out what happened with the Queen Jazz.. .. but regarding marking Queens these pens are my friend..sometimes Queens need remarking after winter with these pens but i am confident in knowing that they are bee friendly and fairly accurate once you have done a few test dots on the side of your tool tray.

[Japey Edge]

Arrived marked. She was accepted for over a week. But yeah I think Steve hit the nail on the head when I texted him the photo - chances are she got squished in transit.