Hi All
 
Enjoyed this thread especially the bit about the excluder box - will
be making one soon.
 
I worked out a little trick for finding queens that seems to work
reasoably well if you don't  scare the bees.
 
If you have an empty frame with nothig in it handy, just place it
betweenn two frames of uncapped brood. I use mainly single brood
chambers so it is easy to work out the direction the queen is movinng
the nest in. Close the hive up, come back in half an hour annd very
genntly open the hive, put one small puff of smoke onto the top of
the hive, place the smoker nearby so the wind wafts the smoke through
and remove the new comb - most of the time the previous disturbance
seems to have made the queen hide, and the vast new laying space
provided by the empty comb attracts her and she will be on that
frame.
 
Another thing that is quite handy, and I have absolutly no knowledge
why this is, but the bee louse, Braulo coece (I think) often seems to
infest the bees near the queen, so if one has bee lice in the hive,
looking for many bees with them is like looking for the queen.
 
Of course there is the newly hatched queen problem - I don't know if
anybody else has had that dissapointing sinking feeling when you
lift out the frame, find the queen and she flies away - and never
comes back!
 
Keep well
 
Garth
---
Garth Cambray       Camdini Apiaries
15 Park Road        Apis melifera capensis
Grahamstown         800mm annual precipitation
6139
Eastern Cape
South Africa               Phone 27-0461-311663
 
On holiday for a few months     Rhodes University
Which means: working with bees 15 hours a day!
Interests: Fliis and bees
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this post in no way
reflect those of Rhodes University.