It rained all day yesterday. My garden gauge registered just over an inch. I suppose the bees hung out in their crowded hives all day as well as the nights. And today, it was sort of cloudy and still seemed damp. I've read that a sunny day after rain is when bees will swarm, so I was watching as I worked in the garden. But they are still all at home. No swarms.
My sister is visiting and she asked me how can you stop bees from out growing a hive? I don't know. I told her that I don't think you can. If you're lucky and the bees are healthy, they grow.
You can just keep increasing the size of the hive. However it becomes impractical after awhile. Also the queen won't be able to visit everywhere enough to maintain the queen pheromone in the entire hive and they'll draw out the queen cups into queen cells and split.
ReplyDeleteMy slatted racks arrived today. I will install them tomorrow morning. I have a low, solid table I found and have it down by the hives now. I hope I can use this to lift and replace the HEAVY full boxes, rather than putting them on the ground like last time. I hope I am not bothering the bees too much. This should be a quick operation. Maybe they will like the extra space and ventilation.
ReplyDeleteMy spare deep box kit also arrived. I figure this is a good thing to have around. I got wood frames rather than the plastic ones in my hives now. They seem more natural, though the drawn area is still a plastic base. I'll assemble it this weekend.
I like the work bench that TheBeeVlog made. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yRHVVwbzHo. Easy to make, portable, sturdy and only a few bees can get crushed (unlike a flat surface where all that are hanging down from the frames can get squished).
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