Spackling With Propolis
As I started to write this post, I searched Google on the topic just for fun.
The search results that came back were interesting. Take for instance, this aritcle in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry that discusses research in mice suggesting propolis can stimulate hair growth or re-growth.
What I had in mind wasn't regrowing hair, instead, it was to seal hive bodies together that had large gaps using reclaimed propolis from the colony.
This past weekend we went to the hives at the farm and looked for queen cells in both hives: the one undergoing to Demaree method, and the other hive that wasn't.
We found swarm cells in each, as we have in the last several weeks. We decided to remove the queen excluder in the Demaree Method hive, essentially ending the Demaree method test. We decided it wasn't buying us much, they were still producing swarm cells, emergency cells since the queen couldn't get to all the frames, and were creating a honey-bound situation in the lower brood box essentially leaving the queen no room to lay brood.
Since we had to make trips to the farm every 5 days to cut queen cells anyways, we abandoned the method and allowed the queen to resume using the full set of boxes to raise brood.
Over the last two weeks we've given these hives a new super and they've finished drawing it out and are about 60% filled. Pas Cher Nike chaussures
This weekend we gave them each another super. One hive got a previously used super that was already drawn, the other hive got foundation only. I'm not sure how much longer the bees will be willing to draw wax in our nectar flow, but we'll see. The weather has been cooler than normal with rain every weekend which has really helped to keep spring in full swing and floral sources blooming.
The two hives at the farm now stand with 4 supers each. The hive on the right still has an extra deep hive body in it from the Demaree method, which is now 90% full of honey also. I'm thinking we may be able to extract it also when we harvest soon.
The search results that came back were interesting. Take for instance, this aritcle in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry that discusses research in mice suggesting propolis can stimulate hair growth or re-growth.
What I had in mind wasn't regrowing hair, instead, it was to seal hive bodies together that had large gaps using reclaimed propolis from the colony.
This past weekend we went to the hives at the farm and looked for queen cells in both hives: the one undergoing to Demaree method, and the other hive that wasn't.
We found swarm cells in each, as we have in the last several weeks. We decided to remove the queen excluder in the Demaree Method hive, essentially ending the Demaree method test. We decided it wasn't buying us much, they were still producing swarm cells, emergency cells since the queen couldn't get to all the frames, and were creating a honey-bound situation in the lower brood box essentially leaving the queen no room to lay brood.
Since we had to make trips to the farm every 5 days to cut queen cells anyways, we abandoned the method and allowed the queen to resume using the full set of boxes to raise brood.
Over the last two weeks we've given these hives a new super and they've finished drawing it out and are about 60% filled. Pas Cher Nike chaussures
This weekend we gave them each another super. One hive got a previously used super that was already drawn, the other hive got foundation only. I'm not sure how much longer the bees will be willing to draw wax in our nectar flow, but we'll see. The weather has been cooler than normal with rain every weekend which has really helped to keep spring in full swing and floral sources blooming.
The two hives at the farm now stand with 4 supers each. The hive on the right still has an extra deep hive body in it from the Demaree method, which is now 90% full of honey also. I'm thinking we may be able to extract it also when we harvest soon.
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