17 Jul 2010
The new queen is doing well
On June 26th, I carried my new queen to my hive in a paper bag on the Q train, as pictured above. My then-second super was pretty much fully drawn out and getting filled up with what might be condensed sugar syrup and might be nectar (proto-honey!). I ultimately added a new second super in the middle, and put the queen excluder between the second and third, so that hopefully that drawn out one can eventually become comb honey. We'll see. I tasted a little bit of it, and it definitely tasted like honey, not sugar syrup.
To introduce the new queen, I took a frame out of the first super and hung her cage in its place (cork removed and candy plug pierced carefully with a nail). This is how we hang queen cages in NYC: Attach a metrocard to the top of the cake with a thumbtack and suspend the cage between two frames by laying the metrocard on top of the frames.
When I went back three days later, on June 29th, the new queen had already been released from her cage.
Also, sort of amazing - the bees built this burr comb (comb in an undesirable location) in the empty space around the queen cage sometime between that Saturday afternoon and the next Tuesday morning:
One piece was hanging off the bottom of the queen cage, and the other was hanging off the frame above the empty space next to the queen cage. It's empty and dry and gorgeous and alien. It smells amazing. I can't decide what to do with it, but oh, I love it so.
On July 2nd, I peeked in again, just to make sure the new queen was laying. I saw very little comb production in the new second super, but to my absolute delight, I saw tiny eggs in several of the frames down in the first super. Success! She was accepted and has a good laying pattern! I fed them a bunch more sugar syrup again to help stimulate wax production, and left them to it.
On July 11th, my mother bravely donned a veil and joined me with the bees. I saw capped brood and uncapped larva in the first super. The second super was maybe 60% drawn out, and I saw a lot of eggs in there, beautifully arranged. The third super is still slowly on its way to becoming honey. It started to rain during my inspection, so I quickly closed things up - but ack, problem, since given their rate of wax production when they really get going, another week could be too late for adding another super.
Luckily the rain stopped quickly, so I dragged another super up from the basement and my father helped me insert it above the second super and below the queen excluder and third (now fourth) super. It's full of wax-coated plastic foundation, which is a first for my hive. I guess we'll see how that goes when I check in again tomorrow.
We actually didn't bother to put on veils or light up the smoker before putting in the new super after heading back up to the roof. Everything just seemed so calm, and with two people it was a quick, simple maneuver. Our courage was justified and neither of us got stung. Man, I am going to be so surprised when I finally get my first sting from this hive!
Okay, ladies. Carry on. New bees should start hatching any day now, so maybe you'll finish up some honey for us soon?