Kangaroo Island Ligurian Queen Bees

26/10/2024

24/10/2024

When I bought these cell protector things I couldn't get tgem to work, and with no instructions, they were absorbed into my messy lifestyle. However tgere came a time when I needed extra time to make up mating nucs, or, stop the overlap from queens out, cells in, and ergo, have more efficiency in my business. Jackpot, got them to work. So now I can keep virgins for a few days before tgeir introduction into queenless nucs. And a photo of some very even brood.

18/10/2024

Add about 250 gms of honey to pure icing sugar, and work it, kneeding, until it doesn't slump. Make a column until it stands erect for a day or more, then bag in zip lok types inorder to keep humidity from making the candy too soft. The candy is then ready for queen cages.

13/10/2024

My surprise garden as in I never would have thought. And I found a vine stem, buried, no leaves, but looking alive. Planted that in a meat tray covered in potting mix. Sells for $5.50 a kilo in our supermarket, based on water, potting mix, container, say my little lot, $50 a kilo? I am amazed. Sooooo, now I get a bit more serious.

12/10/2024

16 started, 19 on the other one. Strange sort of a day. Got ready for bowls, thinking bowls, warmish day, took the bike. No game today, seriously I said I was playing, back on the bike, greeted by a swarm that hived itself, supered, fed syrup, sold some honey, some gardening, checked queen cell grafts, other good things happened, maybe play bowls on Wednesdays, no refusals then.

12/10/2024

Grafted yesterday, after leaving hives bereft of any queen, virgin or otherwise. Jackpot!

09/10/2024

Gotcha! The reason the last graft failed.....two virgins. I had two goes at finding them. Frame by frame, then, repeat, then repeat etc, so I missed bowls, too cold here with daylight saving, so 11.a.m. inspection. Then again at 5.p.m, stuffy with hayfever, frame by frame, all 20 of them, and the box sides, and the bees out the front door, and repeat, and repeat, until 'Eureka', found one. Repeat for next hive, just about to quit, there she is going fro side to side in a corner. How many stings with bees everywhere, frames everywhere? Not one. And people said publicly my bees are vicious.....haha....troll someone else you pathetic morons.

08/10/2024

On my hives note the orange graffiti. The orange is code for 'suspect afb', h/s means honey sample taken. I did not receive a honey sample duplicate. My pirsacutor can accuse me of having afb because I don't have my sample. There are 5 or so little hives, mostly with half frames whifh I use in queen rearing mating nucs. So my question is, why sample just these little hives? Why not the rest of the hives? Behind the hives note the road access though the bush. Next episode to follow soon.

07/10/2024

I took my new friend for a ride, and, parked it next to some Harley owners. All good. Then I went to bowls practice games. It was about 4 to 5 Beaufort scale. Went home in headwinds. I'm beginning to like this bike. I haven't ridden bikes for years, and, I forgot how much concentration it takes. In bikie parlance this is actually a sheila's bike. But I don't mind. I'm too old to belong to tribes.

06/10/2024

I stole these nauturally made bee combs for my cell finisher. No need to buy foundation. Bees make cells to suit their mindset. It pays to make sure no queen, no queen cells, no virgin queen, otherwise no cells will mature. I meant to spell, NATURALLY, but I can't go back and fix it unless I eliminate all the writing that followed. Why am I doing this? Because daylight saving has kicked in and I have to wait now for bee time, ie, when it is warmer, an hour later, at least.

04/10/2024

I'm going to set up a comparison of supplement feeding for bees.