Found the queen in both ends. Moved the queen and all open brood and most of the food stores to a new box which was moved to a new location today.
This leaves the capped brood, and all of the field bees (and several capped queen cells) in each end of the queen box. When I was doing the split yesterday I found several hatched queen cells and more than a dozen capped and not hatched queen cells. I did remove several capped queen cells and put them in the incubator to see if they will hatch (I'll put them in other splits).
I was also able to witness and capture on video the sounds of a queen "piping". I don't remember what the sound means but it was exciting to hear.
I was also able to witness and capture on video the sounds of a queen "piping". I don't remember what the sound means but it was exciting to hear.
Video here:
I discovered a way of moving these large top bars all by my onsie. Up till now I'd always recruited the help of one of my friends - always willing but not excited about it.
If I set up an empty box in my truck, I can transfer combs (9 at a time) from the existing hive to the hive in the truck using my mini swarm catching top bar hive. I then am able to move the empty box by myself into the truck to transport to it's new location. Once there, I repeat the process moving the top bars from the temporary holding hive in my truck to the old hive in the new location. Gone are the days of waiting to move hives until I can find a willing helper.
I transfered both splits to Mom's yard in Springville. Currently in oposite ends of one of my newly constructed hives made from all recycled pallet wood. (except the bolts and roof material).
According to wiki:
ReplyDeletePiping describes a noise made by virgin and mated queen bees during certain times of the virgin queens' development. Fully developed virgin queens communicate through vibratory signals: "quacking" from virgin queens in their queen cells and "tooting" from queens free in the colony, collectively known as piping. A virgin queen may frequently pipe before she emerges from her cell and for a brief time afterwards. Mated queens may briefly pipe after being released in a hive.
Piping is most common when there is more than one queen in a hive. It is postulated that the piping is a form of battle cry announcing to competing queens and the workers their willingness to fight. It may also be a signal to the worker bees which queen is the most worthwhile to support.
The piping sound is a G♯ (aka A♭). The adult queen pipes for a two-second pulse followed by a series of quarter-second toots.[2] The queens of Africanized bees produce more vigorous and frequent bouts of piping.