Inspecting Beehive Splits (and making more!) with Homestead Refuge

Justin of @HomesteadRefuge and I opened the hives to check on the status of our splits. We found that the bees were doing well in making new queens - so well that we made more colonies! We also gave an update on the swarm traps and the comparison of lemongrass oil to Swarm Commander Keep following to see how these hives progress and how our comparison of lemongrass oil to Swarm Commander turns out.
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I grew up on a farm on the edge of the Nebraska sandhills. A cattle ranch that bears our family name, founded in the late 1800s by my ancestors, is still owned and worked by my cousin. Life events have put me in the suburbs of a major metropolitan area in middle America, where my wife and I have raised our two kids. It's in this environment that I work to make as sustainable a life as I can, converting much of our backyard to grow food, including a garden, fruit trees and bee hives.
I attempt to use natural methods, as much as is possible, in my gardening and beekeeping. I garden organically and continue to learn to work with the soil and the plants, without the use of chemical supplements, herbicides or pesticides, to improve our harvest. Our honey bees are sourced from local colonies through swarms, trap-outs and cut-outs, and are kept, using treatment-free, natural methods, in Layens horizontal hives.
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[@rodneymiddleton9624]

Thanks!

[@dcsblessedbees]

Fun day.👍

[@lambbrookfarm4528]

Hey Montie, Thanks for sharing, splits and swarms are still around the corner here in central NH. I can't remember the KZbin, but someone commented about having really big, long queen cells. The thought was that if the queen cell was extra-long, it didn't necessarily mean great queens, but that it might be that the queen was shook and fell from the royal jelly and the bees lengthened the cell and loaded more royal jelly in. Not what I know, just what I heard. Thanks again, Brice

[@jonathandangers5009]

Our 20 frame layen's hives are completely out of room and bursting at the seams with bees. We made a split in April from one and accidentally let another one swarm and they still ended up jam-packed. Any ideas on how to prevent this? Or know of an easy way to convert langstroth equipment to super a Layen's? My wife and I are not fantastic at wood-working.

[@GuyEatingFudge]

7:50 Bees hate movement, it was your arm crossing that instigated things. I demonstrate this with my bees by wiggling a finger and they zoom directly to it, wiggle at the other end and they zomm right across to it. You can send them back and forth like this, might be a cool thing to show on video. Still thats more defensiveness than expected, could be right about them being extra protective of queen cells. Also I know it's easy to forget but remember to close frames as you go leaving only one opening. The bees will thank you :)