We had to say goodbye to Frigg this week. Well, actually I finally figured out that Frigg was no longer in the hive. Frigg's hive was knocked down between Christmas and New Years (probably by a person, or maybe by the wind and the branches of the tree behind the hives), and tons of bees died because of exposure to the cold. Luckily some mystery beekeeper good Samaritan came and put the hive back together again while I was out of town. Thank you mystery beekeeper!
In the weeks after the great knock over of 2011, the workers in Frigg's hive were disgruntled and nervous, while Beeatrice II's hive was full of happy calm bees. Also, Frigg's hive was totally devoid of any brood or eggs, and a couple of emergency queen cells were made, but were not big enough for a real queen to grow in. (This was probably because the bees used eggs laid by a worker to try to make a new queen, since there were no queen eggs. The problem is that worker's eggs can only become drones.)
So, we had to say goodbye to Frigg and combine her hive with Beeatrice's hive. This is done by taking the two boxes from Frigg's hive that have bees, and putting them on Beeatrice's hive, but with a piece of newspaper separating the two hives. Bees that are from separate hives do not like each other, especially in the winter, so the newspaper keeps the hives separate until their pheromones can mix enough to make everybody friends. The bees will supposedly chew up the news paper to eventually unite the hive. -- We'll see how it works!
In the weeks after the great knock over of 2011, the workers in Frigg's hive were disgruntled and nervous, while Beeatrice II's hive was full of happy calm bees. Also, Frigg's hive was totally devoid of any brood or eggs, and a couple of emergency queen cells were made, but were not big enough for a real queen to grow in. (This was probably because the bees used eggs laid by a worker to try to make a new queen, since there were no queen eggs. The problem is that worker's eggs can only become drones.)
So, we had to say goodbye to Frigg and combine her hive with Beeatrice's hive. This is done by taking the two boxes from Frigg's hive that have bees, and putting them on Beeatrice's hive, but with a piece of newspaper separating the two hives. Bees that are from separate hives do not like each other, especially in the winter, so the newspaper keeps the hives separate until their pheromones can mix enough to make everybody friends. The bees will supposedly chew up the news paper to eventually unite the hive. -- We'll see how it works!
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| Frigg's nervous workers running around the hive |
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| Beeatrice's happy workers peeking out between the frames and keeping warm |
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| The united hive |
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