Category Archives: Drone frame traps

Bees in Spring

By Harry Edwards | Published: May 21, 2009
While this spring has been blustery and wet, it's also been relatively warm and provided lots of forging opportunities for the bees. The maple bloom peaked about a two weeks ago, the apple blossoms down at Hartstene have faded, and it was about this time last year that I started seeing the first blackberry blooms [...]
Also posted in Varroa Mites | 1 Comment

A Swarm and a New Queen

By Harry Edwards | Published: July 19, 2008
I had the rare opportunity to observe a swarm exiting Hive 3 yesterday afternoon. At about 4:30pm a cloud of bees floated up over the hives, then drifted west before settling into the outer branches of one the big-leaf maples that surrounds the beeyard. The swarm is about 75 feet up so there’s no chance [...]
Also posted in Hive Inspection, Supercedure, Swarms | Leave a comment

Frozen Drone

By Harry Edwards | Published: July 4, 2008
Last Saturday morning (6/28) I pulled the drone frame from Hive 1 and put it in the freezer to kill both the drone brood and any varroa larvae. The frame was almost complete drawn out and filled with drone brood in various stages of development (see photo). After about 30 hours in the freezer, I [...]
Posted in Drone frame traps | Leave a comment

Queenless in Hive 4

By Harry Edwards | Published: June 26, 2008
What I kept wondering about as I was busy capturing and hiving last Friday’s swarm is where did they come from?  It only took a quick survey of the beeyard to determine that something was wrong in Hive 4–compared to the other hives, there just weren’t that many bees in the top super. However, due [...]
Also posted in Swarms | Leave a comment