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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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From:
"john f. mesinger" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 16 May 2000 14:47:54 -0400
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        Thanks to all for the advisories. I should have mentioned that
splits are not an option. I keep three hives with one backup.  To requeen I
have learned to add one to a NUC of eggs, double hive for a while, kill the
lower queen and unite. It works for me because I am retired and not in the
bee business for profit [other than knowledge].
        I had sucess in Pgh in the early 1960s with Caucasians and sucess
with Italians In Albemarle county, VA - until mites came. Starlines and
Midnites and Yugos all presented problems.                      Sue Coby
Carniolans have been great but you have to work with them and they are
different. I got into trouble when my State Agent suggested queens would
not cross a two inch barrier of capped honey so I should drop using queen
[honey] excluders. It worked when I had two full sized brood boxes. When I
shifted to three Illinois, the bees promptly filled and capped the top box
[as well as three supers each last spring]. So I was in a space deficit.
There was one frame of capped brood the second week of January, three
frames the first week of February, an empty bottom box and a totally full
middle box in March. When I removed Apistan strips the first week of April,
I had 14 swarm cells per hive with every available space vertically between
frames full of black drones.  Much of what could have been brood cells were
filled with pollen and nectar. The hives were boiling over with bees. Two
of three hives have swarmed. I have removed 6 of ten frames of capped honey
and replaced with undrawn comb [I make cut comb honey only] and added these
to the new Queened  NUCs I am building up to take over these two hives when
the honey flow is over. {the third hive is into the second super so I have
not touched it.} -yet.
        In the third spring of Carniolans I can say that three hives
wintered with as large a cluster of bees as any Italians I have had and
they ate less than half of the stores my Starlines did a year ago before I
sold them [and those had not started brood until Mid March that year, a
warmer than usual one].

John F. Mesinger
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