What Happened to Balboa... (When a Queen Gets Old, The Bees Know What to Do)

okay let me give you the full rundown on Bell boa this is my oldest hive in the apiary this hive is survived three winters and it is my rockstar hive the queen in here was the daughter of the original queen that survived my first winter and she emerged in 2017 so this is her third year she made it through this winter built up just fine in the springtime and about a month ago I noticed she was slowing down okay Balboa how does the build-up go boa is a survivor but he's definitely slowing down so yeah they're filling they're filling this up this upper box with nectar so you know hey maybe I spoke too soon there she is all right let's have a look down at the bottom they got plenty of space up here she's doing well they don't they don't need a super let's just brace calm down there that's not swarm cells there are a couple of clean cups on that frame they've been there for a while but I'm just leaving them because something's gonna go on with this hive if they know what they're doing nice brood beautiful brood alright I'm just gonna leave them just like this and come back in a week plenty of resources they're filling up the hive thought Bo was doing the slow steady build nothing wrong with that so about a week after that I notice some queen cells being formed in here checking on Balboa still have not super dwell boa because they had a lot of space the last couple of weeks that's just a lovely frame brood right there it's full of eggs one little Queen Cup being built nothing scary eggs and larvae everywhere she's she's laying there's Balboa there's definitely no swarm indication in this hive so I'm going to leave them alone one more time and again I do not think they need a super at this time there's quite a bit of space in here although a lot of this brood is gonna be hatching let me just look down at the bottom and see if the bottom is full and see if there it looks like there's a lot of brood down there if there's gonna be a big emergence of brood I want to put another box on here just to give them that space let's just have a look down below quick okay some cups down here there's some cups at the bottom of Balboa here just knock these all off Gobbo is definitely laying all over the place okay just took them off okay a couple frames with with swarm cells on them but they have a lot of space there's there's there's tons of space they don't need a super I'm just gonna put them all back together it's a call the swarm cells off all right elbow is right up here she's laying like crazy they got plenty of resources took away the swarm cells velboa hive is is okay a little bit nervous but type knows what they're doing now because this hive is my survivor hive this hive is always made it through the winter they've always you know found a way to make a new clean when they need to I decided to just let them do what they were doing boa I only got a super yeah they're they're using it they're kind of drawing it out there's not much up here let's make sure we have a queen right Balboa she is okay she's right there on that far frame look clean cups on the bottom there I'm looking for breed because I don't see so far no eggs looking for eggs not seeing eggs I'm seeing a lot of Queen cups okay I'm thinking um it looks like Balboa may not be Queen right alright there's some larvae and there's some younger larvae but I do not see eggs so Bobo might be might be white the ending her reign here these might be slowing down for her let's look at the bottom and see if she's laid the bottom at all there is a lot of brood come on eggs looking for eggs Balboa yeah she's got this full of brood but no no fresh young larvae or eggs oh maybe not all right she's been here there is a lot of larvae in here but I would describe her pattern as spotty so I think she's I think she's getting near the end unfortunately velboa generation to Babbo was original Balboa's first daughter I think she's she's coming to the end it's it's definitely there are eggs in there but they're they're spotty all right so Balboa probably isn't gonna be around too much longer but again the colony has been taking care of itself now for this is their fourth season with very little intervention so I'm gonna let them decide if they'll bow is ready to go or not and I'm just gonna let them be Balboa all right bell boa last time I checked Balboa the original or the original Balboa's daughter Balboa gen to 2017 Queen was looking a little slow and they were looking like they might replace her let's see what they did she is the matriarch of the entire bee yard she's been around the longest this colony is the oldest colony I have there 2016 they've made it through three winters caps warm cells and one I just accidentally tore open I don't know if that was a no emergency queen or a swarm or what but see what's going on in here there's got to be more than one more swarm cells there's an emerged queen cell another one okay there's a lot of Queen cells in here that have emerged and I see wow I see two queens right now I see there are two queens right there on top of each other so we have a nuke we have new Queens in here I can't tell if they're mated we got two queens on one frame there's a capped queen cell there's a lot going on in this hive so some Queens emerged and now we've got swarm cells and more capped Queen cells I'm gonna split this hive up I'm gonna put one Queen and I'm gonna take one clean out of here and put it in them a nuke so I'm gonna knock off these swarm cells and put them into this I'm gonna put this frame into a nuke so that's like a frame of resources and some drones some bees all right they're going to a nuke one more frame I need to get the frame with the Queen's on it take one Queen off where'd you go Queens oh there's there's one right there just clean right there I'm gonna put her in the other hive I'm gonna put her in the little nuke all right I put that one Queen in there and I saw another one in here and there's definitely some more Queen cells in here so I'm gonna leave them alone I need to put a frame of brood over there I got to find it I got to go down below and find something there's a bee bread a lot of space to lay in here you put this frame in there I'm gonna put this frame in there as well all right so I have eyes on a queen in this hive I know there's a queen in here so Balboa is has made a whole bunch of queens a lot of swarm cells which I knocked down and there's a queen running around in here that probably needs to mate so Balboa our velboa queen is no more but she left a whole bunch of daughters and she has filled up the bee yard with other colonies so she would live on so the Queen sells emerged and the Queen was out and I saw a queen in this high of two weeks ago came back about a week later to see if I could see any eggs and I did not see any eggs all right last time I was in Balboa I found two Queens I put one into a split and the other one I left in here and I think it was a virgin so I want to see if she's made it if this hive is Queen right now if they are not Queen right I might introduce a queen into this hive if they are queen right I'm probably gonna reduce this down to a single deep just like I did with the Cornelia hive there are a lot of bees yeah we got population for sure holy cow this is packed oh my god okay are we Queen right a lot of bees in here it was like more than there were last time I looked they know eggs so far I see no evidence of a queen down here we're in the bottom all right I'm gonna look up top one more frame here I think she'd be way out here but who knows there's a queen okay there's a queen out here don't know why she's out here and I don't she doesn't appear made it to me she looks kind of small all right weird things going on with Balboa and no eggs down here they are not Queen right no brood in over a week okay queen is over here I'm gonna make this a single deep with some space for them to lay so the Queen that they made is in there I don't think she's made it yet but she's in there and she's got speech no she's not honey bound I'm just gonna give them a single box put them all back together supers are packed and this was their upper brood box which is packed with honey but I want them to just kind of trickle back down so Bobo is not Queen right I'm gonna give that Queen that is in there another week to go out get made it in lay some eggs she's down in a single deep now and they've got tons of resources up above so now it's one week later and I want to come in here and see if that Queen has mated and it started laying so what I'm looking for in here today I'm really hoping for is to see some brood in here from this Queen because the Queen wasn't laying I put this upper this upper-level super up on top of the other supers this is a pretty packed box of honey here but I excluded the Queen down to a single deep and this is this is packed oh my gosh good job this is packed as well wow this one is probably a third to a half full okay looking for brood really really want to see some brood and on that frame all right nothing no eggs come on Queen I'll be bred [Music] yes we have eggs we got a frame full of eggs Balboa's Queen right again it's all nice pattern this doesn't look like a laying worker situation this is all laid out there she is there's our queen all right so we have a lane Queen in Balboa we're back so they did it they made a new queen they needed a queen they made a queen Balboa has done it again and they are they are jammed with resources so all good welcome back Bell boa hive as of right now today we are Queen right in every hive except for Frankie and Frankie was queen right a week ago but she's not there anymore so every every hive except for Frankie and Frankie now has a frame of eggs to make it clean but everyone else is queen right and that's pretty that's pretty good so twelve eleven colonies and nine resource hives Queen right hopefully Frankie can do magic and we can get on with things there's a ton of honey up here I'm gonna see about taking some of these frames off because I gotta get ready for the Fall flow that's gonna happen so I might be spent some honey and the next you know week or so and I'm way way way behind in videos but I'm I'm gonna put them all out you're gonna see everything as it happened but life is busy right now so thanks for watching see on the next one [Music] [Music]

Channel: Vino Farm

Views: 474,876

Keywords: What Happened To Balboa..., honey bees, hive inspection, beekeeping documentary, beekeeping 101, new queen, northern beekeeping, massachusetts bees, bee hive, italian honey bees, beekeeping videos on youtube, italian queen bees, requeening a beehive, requeen, bees requeen themselves, homesteading, homestead, massachusetts, beekeeper, beekeeping, balboa, queen balboa

Id: HyNKn2iSfVs

Length: 16min 5sec (965 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 05 2019