http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/ A journal of efforts made at the Ziegler apiary. en-us Sun, 29 Jun 2014 00:12:54 +0000 Sat, 28 Jun 2014 16:14:58 +0000 http://www.rssboard.org/rss-2-0-1 Copyright 2025 apiarist@adamziegler.com (Adam Ziegler) http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/img/favicon.png http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/ http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/colony-removal-from-shed http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/colony-removal-from-shed I called yesterday to perform a cutout of a long established hive from a backyard shed. The owners noted that the colony had been... Sat, 28 Jun 2014 16:14:58 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/spring-package-install http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/spring-package-install I decided to replace some of my winter hive losses with packages bees. The packages arrived from California to Lynnville Iowa late... Sat, 05 Apr 2014 21:00:00 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/building-screened-bottom-boards http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/building-screened-bottom-boards I am going to try some screened bottom boards on a couple hives this year to see how the bees respond to an open bottom. Besides... Fri, 21 Mar 2014 19:08:36 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/three-down http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/three-down Today was warm enough to do a quick check of the hives. Three colonies have bit the Dust. One box (Nuc#4) did not have a single... Sat, 30 Nov 2013 10:44:06 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/good-idea-bad-idea http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/good-idea-bad-idea Good idea: render the wax collected up from various efforts and render it into a clean block of wax that can be used in various ways.... Sat, 12 Oct 2013 21:20:29 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/is-the-queen-cut-out http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/is-the-queen-cut-out The cutout hive from a last month had generated some queen cells. Today during inspection I found eggs, larva, and then the queen... Tue, 08 Oct 2013 20:18:51 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/queen-cells-on-cutout http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/queen-cells-on-cutout I wanted to transfer the cutout from the bee-vac to a nuc hive while performing an inspection. The bees had attached the comb to... Mon, 16 Sep 2013 20:32:03 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/open-sugar-feeding http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/open-sugar-feeding Tonight I placed a bucket of sugar water out with pieces of styrofoam sheet pieces floating on the top. It took the bees about 5... Thu, 12 Sep 2013 20:36:11 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/fall-cut-out http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/fall-cut-out Is it ever going to rain? A coworker contacted me a couple weeks back and said that he had ran into a snag with a home improvement... Sat, 07 Sep 2013 18:08:45 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/national-honey-bee-day-2013 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/national-honey-bee-day-2013 Today is National Honey Bee Day. As it has been almost a month since I have done an inspection of the hives, I thought I would take... Sat, 17 Aug 2013 16:56:42 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/swarm-capture-and-beekeeper-relocation http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/swarm-capture-and-beekeeper-relocation I was contacted this afternoon to capture a swarm West of Geneseo Illinois. The swarm came from a cavity in a mature maple tree,... Fri, 19 Jul 2013 20:56:11 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/missed-the-split http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/missed-the-split Yesterday I noted that Nuc#3 was ready to swarm. It was late in the day, and thought I might have time today to split up the bees.... Wed, 10 Jul 2013 17:44:14 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/culled-comb http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/culled-comb I culled a small amount of old comb from hTBH and from Warre#1 today. From the comb I was able to harvest 18-20 pounds of honey.... Sat, 29 Jun 2013 20:35:00 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/screens-removed http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/screens-removed Was a bit late getting over the the new property to remove the screens. It was warm, and the bees were ready to exit the hive. ... Tue, 25 Jun 2013 17:16:00 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/some-hives-moved http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/some-hives-moved Large storm last night cooled down the area and kept the bees confined to the hive most of the day. By the time I got home from work... Mon, 24 Jun 2013 23:27:00 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/not-a-laying-worker http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/not-a-laying-worker Nuc#1 Checked the queen cells. The where ripped open from the sides suggesting that another queen,or laying worker did it. I ended... Tue, 18 Jun 2013 11:24:00 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/the-swarm-swarmed http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/the-swarm-swarmed Sometime between the hours of noon and 4pm, nuc#5 (collected yesterday)swarmed... completely. In hindsight, the swarm did not settle... Sun, 16 Jun 2013 16:19:00 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/very-large-reactive-swarm-capture http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/very-large-reactive-swarm-capture The hTBH swarmed today. Landed in a neighbors tree about 15 feet away in two separate large clusters. As full as that hive has been... Sat, 15 Jun 2013 19:04:00 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/t-ball-swarm http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/t-ball-swarm At my son's t-ball game this evening. Kept hearing folks talking about a tree next to the port-a-potty. My ears perked up when... Thu, 13 Jun 2013 20:43:00 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/nuc-1-is-fixed http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/nuc-1-is-fixed Swarm still up in close by tree. No luck at shaking them down. Cluster looks to be about 3-4 lbs of bees. Nuc#1 Frame of eggs... Sat, 08 Jun 2013 09:21:00 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/queen-cells-and-swarms http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/queen-cells-and-swarms hTBH It seems that the queen I removed to place in Nuc#3 certainly did not return here, as it is loaded with queen cells. Form the... Fri, 07 Jun 2013 15:42:00 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/new-queen-laying-worker-and-splitting-with-knife http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/new-queen-laying-worker-and-splitting-with-knife hTBH Aggressive hive, especially when taking a razor through brood comb to fit to lang frames. Using every other bar, (3 total bars)... Sun, 02 Jun 2013 15:36:00 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/hive-inspections http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/hive-inspections Nuc#2 Is honey and pollen bound. At least 8 empty queen cells, at least 2 of the cells were torn open. No signs of a laying queen.... Tue, 21 May 2013 10:13:00 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/first-swarm-of-the-season http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/first-swarm-of-the-season I was out grinding tree stumps when I got a call from my wife that there was a large cloud of bees over the back garden. I was home... Sat, 18 May 2013 19:13:00 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/queen-tooting-from-dixon-nuc-2 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/queen-tooting-from-dixon-nuc-2 Placing my ear on the nuc, I could heard the tooting of 2 or more queens in the hive. Mimicking the tones with my voice would cause... Fri, 17 May 2013 08:33:00 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/dixon-nucs-with-queen-cells http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/dixon-nucs-with-queen-cells I inspected both nucs. Nuc #1 had only one elongated cells. This nuc only had one queen cell when I first purchased the colonies... Sat, 11 May 2013 20:51:00 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/two-new-nucs http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/two-new-nucs Took a trip to Dixon Illinois to pickup two queen less nucs. There was a completed queen cell in one hive and a couple started cells... Fri, 03 May 2013 21:15:00 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/found-the-elusive-queen http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/found-the-elusive-queen Last July I split a hTBH and used OTS queen rearing methods to get a new queen. The methods worked, and I was able to find evidence... Sun, 14 Apr 2013 09:21:00 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/winter-again http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/winter-again After some nice 50 F weather, we received quite a bit of snow yesterday. This post is really just a test to see how pictures are... Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:40:31 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/spring-observations http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/spring-observations Last fall one of the hives I had split was overcome with mites, and dropping in numbers. While the hive managed to make it past Christmas,... Mon, 25 Mar 2013 09:41:32 +0000 http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/5-frame-mediaum-nuc http://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/journal/article/5-frame-mediaum-nuc This is an example of some of the 5 frame medium nuc hives I build. The outside dimensions are 9-1/4" x 19-7/8". The sides are... Sun, 23 Dec 2012 08:06:06 +0000