Time to wean this year's calves!

Here they are and not at all happy about being separated from there mothers.

Winter solstice!

Here we are with the rod that we drove in the ground that lines up with the sun to cast a shadow in the center of the rock on solstice morning. This picture was actually taken two days before as we were afraid solstice was going to be cloudy as you can see the shadow is just to the right of center.

 

Re: We are so impressed with all the native bumble bees in our garden this year working right alongside of our domestic bees.

On Aug 9, 2018, at 9:21 PM, Norman wrote:

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We are so impressed with all the native bumble bees in our garden this year working right alongside of our domestic bees.

These fotos were taken a week or two apart in the same place in our garden.

And here is the latest calf.

This beautiful bull calf was born on the 18th of July. This picture of him on his feet was taken within thirty minutes of him hitting the ground. Good job Mama!

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.