In the morning, we went to gather six more frames of bees to transfer to the nuke. The nuke is sectioned off into three separate sections by a slab of wood. Each section will get three frames (out of about eight) of bees from another hive.
We inspected a bunch hives in order to find a frame that can be used. We only took one frame from a single hive. The frame would be ideal if it was not quite completed so that it would fit. The nukes are slightly shallow. It would also have brood, nectar, honey, and larvae. Frames from Langstroth hives had to be cut quite a lot in order to fit the trapezoid shape (instead of a rectangle). We had to be careful not to remove the queen by accident. We would look over a possible frame many times over in order to make sure. We almost took a queen away on a frame but a tenth look confirmed she was hiding on that frame. Yikes! The bees in the Langstroth hives were more aggressive and agitated beyond a doubt compared to top-bar. The design with Langstroth is such that all the bees are exposed at once, and they all fly up at you and out. I cannot stress the difference enough because you can just tell by going into each type of hive for yourself. It is a feeling, an impression, and very distinct. Thank goodness for the smoker.
Pictures of the top-bar hives:
For the FIRST time today, I distinctly smelled the alarm pheromone! I got a big whiff of it after opening one of the Langstroth hives. It smelled like banana flavoring (the fake kind, like in candy). At first, I thought it was the smoker becuase we were using banana leaves but then I thought, why in the world would burning banana leaves smell like banana? I am so glad that I asked Agape, and she confirmed that I had smelled the alarm pheromone. It made me very happy becuase people talk about it and I had not experienced it for myself yet. Beekeeping uses all of your senses, including smell, sound, and feel and of the bees.
One hive design that I looked into today was higher in height than all the others. Agape called for me to do it, "This is a Megan hive." becuase I was tall enough to reach in easily. We take turns doing an inspection where one person goes through an entire hive and looks at each and every bar. It takes practice to do it efficiently and be able to glance at a bar with comb and know what it contains. It also takes knowledge of bees to know what the hive is up to as well as the health of the hive by looking in. I was the only one that didn't get stung today...
When we had gathered all six frames full of bees that we needed, we headed to the other side of the kitchen to the nuke. We arranged the bars so that the three frames for each section went in the middle. I did not like cutting the comb at all. I did it yesterday with Agape as well. You have to cut the comb on the edges to make it fit into the hive (because it did not originate from that hive). You end up cutting into brood and larvae (baby bees). The smell becomes awful, and the guts drip on your hands and onto the ground. We ended up saving a few bees that were ready to emerge from the comb that was cut off. They can survive if they are old enough and placed into the hive to be taken care of. The bars were terrible to deal with becuase they were too short and kept falling into the hive. We eventually made it work and took a break for lunch.
After lunch, we went with Kwao to get queen cells. There was a wild hive down the road that he had captured in a swarm box. It was captured queenless, which meant that they were making queen cells. We found the bar with the cells sticking out of it (they look like peanut shells). We needed three queen cells to put into the (queenless) sections of the nuke. There were around nine cells to choose from, but some of them were clumped together. Agape and Kwao talked about the best way to cut out three cells that we needed. Also, one had to be left behind for the wild hive to keep, preferably the best one (the biggest). We placed that cut queen cells with comb on the top (for easier attachment) in a bowl with toilet paper. I didn't know this, but queen cells are very delicate and can easily break. You even have to hold them upright to make sure they do not break. When we got back to the farm, we looked at each clump of cells that we brought back in order to separate just one big queen cell from each. It was tricky, but Kwao managed to cut around each one and get just one queen cell from each cluster. The other cells had to be sacrificed because they were no good. They had to be cut into in order to reach the biggest cell. Kwao opened one up so that we could see the white queen growing on the inside. I had never seen this before, but they noted that there was no royal jelly (I wouldn't have known the difference). The hive was a little weak and not feeding the queen that much.
The cluster of queen cells:
We took the three individual queen cells and integrated each into the three sections of the nuke. We did this by pushing an impression in the established comb in the middle. Then, we took the queen cell with the extra comb on top and pushed it onto the comb of the bar. Agape showed me how to take new wax from the outer edges of the bar and "glue" the queen cell in by pushing the comb around it. The comb sticks together pretty well, and we carefully placed her into the hive on the middle bar. I got to do one of them, but on the side of the comb. We will see how it all works out! Fun!
Hi Megan!
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