I've decided to combine the small swarm hive with Proteus Bee. They were completely robbed out last weekend when I added a frame of honey and several frames of brood to them. So this week I added another frame of honey and the robbing started again.
Michael Bush advised me on Beemaster to close the hive up until tomorrow and hopefully the robbing will desist. Then I can combine the two hives tomorrow afternoon.
Here's a slideshow of the terrible efforts to contain the robbing. To read the captions and see the show in bigger pictures, click on the picture and when you get to the web album page, click on "slideshow" at the upper left of the picture:
Re:the solar wax melter. Have you had any problems with the rubber band around the plastic container breaking or melting? I put a batch out a few days ago. The temperature was about 94. When I checked the melter late in the afternoon, I found the rubber band broken and the paper towel sunken into the container with the melted wax. What a mess!
ReplyDeleteI've not had that happen, but I use good rubber bands from Office Depot and good paper towels - and maybe I've just been lucky. I did once have a mess when it got cloudy and there was lots of good wax solidified on the paper towel with the gunk that is usually there. I just put the whole thing out again on the next sunny day and it did fine.
ReplyDeleteGood luck,
Linda T