Author Topic: Pollen!  (Read 1647 times)

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Offline Wandering Man

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Pollen!
« on: February 06, 2021, 11:49:38 pm »
We checked our hives today, and most are looking good.  We've got a queen that has gone missing, and one queen who hasn't laid an egg since November, but some of our hives are ramping up for spring.  We may get a light freeze next Friday, but I think after that we'll be free of colder weather.  I know, 32* isn't really cold to a lot of you, but it is to us.  And our bees!



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Offline Grandma Bear

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Re: Pollen!
« Reply #1 on: February 07, 2021, 10:57:42 am »
Glad your colonies are coming along well  :yes:

I walked by ours before this horrible cold snap and they were bringing in the most beautiful bright gold pollen from something. Now we were down to 5 degrees last night, and supposed to see some negatives all week long. Our weather has such wide swings that I think the bees suffer more from that than the cold or snowy stuff.


Offline Bakersdozen

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Re: Pollen!
« Reply #2 on: February 07, 2021, 11:05:54 am »
I haven't observed any pollen being brought in yet but it's not uncommon to see them bring in something during warm winter days.

Wandering Man, what will you do with the queenless colony?  Combine? or can you get local queens this early?

Offline Wandering Man

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Re: Pollen!
« Reply #3 on: February 07, 2021, 05:51:00 pm »
I haven't observed any pollen being brought in yet but it's not uncommon to see them bring in something during warm winter days.

Wandering Man, what will you do with the queenless colony?  Combine? or can you get local queens this early?

Bakers, for now we are just watching.  The queenless colony had two fully formed queen cells 11 days ago.  At least I thought they were queen cells.  Maybe it was just burr comb.  Anyway, the cells were gone when we checked yesterday.

I also discovered some capped brood that we hadn't seen before.

I don't know if we just missed the queen, or if one of the queen cells has hatched and is waiting to mature enough to go out and find someone to mate with.  One of the healthy hives has drone brood in it, so if there is a virgin queen hanging around, there is hope she'll find some mates.

The capped brood couldn't be from the new queen (if there is one).  I must have just missed it before.

At any rate, it is pretty obvious that the bees were able to hide things from me, so I think our best bet for now is to just watch.  If the hive gets noticeably smaller, or I start seeing eggs laid on the sides of the comb, we'll combine the hive with another one.  That would drop us to 4 hives, and we'd need to either collect two more swarms before May 1, or buy 2 more packages. 

My County Appraisal District guy said that as long as I have the bees on order he'll let me claim the Ag Valuation.
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Offline Bakersdozen

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Re: Pollen!
« Reply #4 on: February 08, 2021, 09:28:39 am »
Drone brood already!  Wow!
Is there any nectar sources blooming yet?  If you see other hives actively foraging and the hive in question acting lethargic that could be another indicator they are queenless.

Offline Wandering Man

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Re: Pollen!
« Reply #5 on: February 09, 2021, 07:05:54 pm »
We'll have to watch the hive closely.  We were out there today and all of the hives were active with bees zooming in and out.  Lots of pollen coming in in.  We opened two hives.  The one with drone brood has increased the number of brood, and emptied much of its nectar stores.  We fed the hive this afternoon, but in the meantime, 3Reds is busy making up more sugar water.  Apparently there is little nectar out there. 

We had fun in the beeyard today.  A local guy does a YouTube series about thing happening in Victoria, Texas.  He came out and let us teach him about bees.  Once he publishes the story, I'll post it on WWB.  It will be three to four weeks.  His cameraman wants to come back and try to slip a macro lens into one of the hives.

Anyway, 80* today, we expect a low of 25* on Saturday, with a couple of cold evenings on either side.  I think once that freeze comes and goes, we'll be looking at Spring temps again.  I hope the flowers and blooming trees can keep up with the bees.
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