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| Queen getting ready to lay |
This is the queen in our Tardis hive. We call her Liz 10.
[Whovians get it.]
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| Queen moving across capped honey comb |
The Tardis is a horizontal hive body - as wide as two regular hive bodies side by side. You take the lid off and can see the entire brood chamber without lifting one box off the other. We LOVE horizontal hives and from now on, this is the way we're going to go.
We're feeding this hive 1 quart of sugar syrup every other day. They're sucking it dry. I hope that if it ever starts raining here again, that when the goldenrod blooms, this hive will actually make us a few frames of honey. We'll see.
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| Queen laying [in center of pic] , surrounded by attendants |
We have had no problems with the Tardis hive. The queen laid gangbusters from the beginning that that hive is constantly crowded at the entrance. They much prefer the lower entrance, even though they can get out under the telescoping top lid. I also opened a second lower entrance at the other end of the hive body but at the last inspection discovered a bumble bee in there robbing the honey, so I closed it off. The bees obviously weren't guarding it.
Thanks to Lily for the pics. She does the camera thing while Eric and I are working the hives. I point and tell her what to shoot and she shoots. It makes things much easier for us.