Monday, June 25, 2018

Swarm Box.

So with my recent poor luck with cell builder hives. I am trying this other method.
I take a strong hive, find the queen and isolate her.
Then place a frame of pollen and a frame of green honey with bees into this well ventilated six frame box. Then going from one frame to the next I sweep all the bees I can into the box with screen top and a small opening.
I put the queen back into the hive where most of the bees return. I did this with two hives giving me two swarm boxes filled with queen less bees.
After a day I placed a frame of queen cells with grafted larva.
One box accepted them but the other did not.
So into that box I placed a frame of eggs and young larva from the downer hive and right away they began to make two queens!
When we get back from Philly, I am going to use this method to produce another set of hives.

Friday, June 15, 2018

Preparing our tamale corn for planting.

We have been planting this same corn for the better part of twenty years, always selecting the prettiest ears.