![\"beepackage\"](\"http:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/beepackage-300x200.jpg\" "\\"beepackage\\"")
mentor, had a traumatic autumn and we just didn’t get together quite enough.<\/p>\nImbolc\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New Moon (Awakening)<\/p>\n
Bees.\u00a0 Bees.\u00a0 Bees.\u00a0 Bees.\u00a0 I’ve had two 8 hour sessions of nothing but bees.\u00a0 And more stuff about bees.<\/p>\n
Today I learned about dividing a colony, a successfully wintered colony, which is our situation here.\u00a0 As Marla Spivak says, “If you’re not sure, just let the bees do it.”\u00a0 That conforms to my work late last fall with the bees.\u00a0 Mark, my bee mentor, had a traumatic autumn and we just didn’t get together quite enough.<\/p>\n
Now, though, I understand the next step, which will create a parent colony–the old queen with two hive boxes–and a child colony, which I will treat in the same way I did the current one.\u00a0 That is, the goal with it will be to get to late fall with three hive boxes with a combination of brood, pollen and honey sufficient to see the child colony through this coming winter.<\/p>\n
(2 lb package of bees)<\/p>\n
Here’s the difficult part.\u00a0 The parent colony gets no care after the honey flow stops.\u00a0 This means that its queen will die of old age and since the colony will then have lost its egg layer, the entire colony will die out over the winter.\u00a0 There’s nothing cruel about this since it follows the essential biology of bees.\u00a0 That is, queens live around 2\u00a0 years and the workers 60 days, so the entire colony would die out under any circumstances without a new queen and even if a new queen were added, the bees that would become the new colony under her reign would be entirely new bees.<\/p>\n
There’s a big upside to this for all bees.\u00a0 We can clean out the old hive bodies and frames, check for disease and virus and if necessary we can burn the old frames and start over.\u00a0 This means that each bee colony will have a young, prolific queen and each hive will get a complete going over ever other year.\u00a0 Both of these elements, cleaning and a young, prolific queen increase the colonies capacity to survive and thrive.<\/p>\n
The good news is that the parent colony begins making honey the minute the divide is complete.\u00a0 Honey supers go on the parent colony right away and they start filling up.\u00a0 A honey super is about half the size of a deep hive box and honey filled frames are their only result.\u00a0 A queen excluder is put on the parent colony deep hive boxes, so the queen does not crawl up in the honey supers and start laying eggs, therefore only honey ends up in them.<\/p>\n
In addition to the divide Mark the bee mentor called and said he had an extra package of bees on the way.\u00a0 I agreed to buy it because I thought my bees were dead.\u00a0 Since they’re not, taking on another package of bees means we’ll end up with four hives next spring if everything goes well.\u00a0 At that point, we should be producing some serious honey, possibly enough to sell at farmer’s markets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Imbolc\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New Moon (Awakening) Bees.\u00a0 Bees.\u00a0 Bees.\u00a0 Bees.\u00a0 I’ve had two 8 hour sessions of nothing but bees.\u00a0 And more stuff about bees. Today I learned about dividing a colony, a successfully wintered colony, which is our situation here.\u00a0 As Marla Spivak says, “If you’re not sure, just let the bees do it.”\u00a0 That conforms … Continue reading A Parent Colony, A Divide, And a Package Colony<\/span>