This year, I had the wonderful opportunity to have my adult kids give me a hand with queen rearing/nuc making in our yard in California. This is where the bees pollinated the almonds this February/March.
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| Working Hives |
The weather cooperated a bit for us, although it sprinkled a bit. Just after we finished our last task, it really came down! My father-in-law in Houston would say, "it was a real frog strangler".
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| Placing Cells and Pro Biotic Treatment Applied |
We have been using ProDFM pro-biotic treatment for some time and the bees seem to respond to it very well. Doing this brief and 'delicate' operation required some speed and care. I was placing the cells and my lovely daughter - Hannah would apply the treatment. THANK YOU Hannah!
Each Nuc took about 4 seconds to do. The bees are queenless at this point - so they are not in the 'mood' to be messed with! Plus, the weather was a cool and damp and this didn't help either. It was interesting that the Nucs took immediate interest in the cell - once placed.
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| Cool Weather |
Working hives is not easy! Pretty long days but very rewarding! We all were fairly tired by nightfall!
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| Loading Nucs from Outyard |
We built some of our Nucs at an outyard on a previous day before placing queen cells. Michael was a huge help! THANK YOU!
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| Inspecting 'donor' hives for making Nucs |
These were strong 'donor' hives - with two of them that were very pissy and angry. Just a few stings! LOL :-)
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ProDFM with Powder Sugar Treatment
Note - the Pink cell in the middle of the nuc! |
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