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Quick Check-in at the Prairie

We’ve been bad beekeepers. Haven’t been to the hives in about 10 days due to a tight schedule, rampant illness and rain. Lots of rain.

The bad news is that one of the two nucs we started did not make it. RIP.

The good news is that Ole re-queened herself. But, the semi-bad news is that when the queen came back after her mating flight it appears she zoomed right into the honey super instead of staying below the queen excluder in the brood boxes. So, we we sacrificed that honey super and put the queen excluder above it, and dropped on another honey super on the toppy-top.

So, how did the queen get above the queen excluder? When we put the honey supers on, we offset them just a bit so as the workers are bringing in nectar they can fly right into the penthouse/honey super. If you check out the picture taken the day we supered, you can see the offset honey super on top. Badda-bing – everything weird happens to us.

DSCN1883

Example of offset honey supers (top narrow box), taken a couple weeks ago.

And then it started to rain. Again.

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About Idiots Keeping Bees

We're always looking for new adventures, and well, learning about beekeeping seemed like a good idea. We had one hive in 2011, and we've increased since then Our goal is 10ish colonies, but we haven't hit our mark quite yet. We've found talking with other beekeepers to be invaluable, so we're starting this blog to keep long-distance conversations rolling throughout the year. If we can figure out beekeeping, so can you!

One response »

  1. I may have to copy the way you have the name of your hive on the cover. It would help property owners.

    Reply

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