Some queen breeders advocate having brood frames in the finisher box. It ensures more nurse bees to feed these larvae. I think the idea plausible. Also, in the method I'm using, to ensure I get nurse bees in the cell starter, there ends up being one or two brood frames in the finisher. I know that I've read this and heard it in lectures, one must check all brood frames for queen cells. Michael Palmer said it in one of his lectures like five times. Ian won't have any brood frames in his finishers. I forgot. I'll bet every queen breeder forgets at least once. Had some cells started last week, went in to put on cages and they're all torn down. Sure enough, on a brood frame was an open queen cell. Missed it from the previous set of grafts. And although it's a controversal subject, I do believe that bees can move eggs so even with the queen excluder they could still raise a queen above it. So yes it's important to check all of the frames for cells. I only lost five queens, would hate to lose 10-30. So I had a rouge virgin running around in the top box. Looked but couldn't find her. Took a chance and shook everything down to the lower boxes, did another set of grafts and on day two, of eight grafts, I have five cups of royal jelly. I know there is the potential of this rouge virgin killing the current queen. Might not be so bad, she's a year and a half old and they're not the nicest group. It certainly could be worse and better both. Due to my current resources I'm limited in what I can do. I like the idea of a finisher box with no brood, just shake in some bees each week or so. But I don't have those resources. Will certainly check for cells diligently in the future. Failures are indeed the best teachers.
Friday, June 29, 2018
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
Real small scale queen rearing
I've watched so many Youtube videos on queen rearing, I have information overload. There are some issues I have with nearly all of them. They're designed to raise a lot of queens. I've seen Michael Palmer, Jason Chrisman, Don the fat bee-man, Ian Steppler up in Canada, and some others. One thing they all have in common is they have lots of bees. Brushy Mountain did a small scale queen rearing webinar with Larry Conner. Excellent video and great lessons but my definition of small scale and their's are very different. They show pictures of frames with 10 to 40 queen cells. What these videos don't tell us is that for every little peanut, you need a mating box which means at least a frame of brood and frame of comb. Or maybe a frame of food and comb. Either way for every queen cell a breeder needs a frame of bees and a box. I think I heard Michael Palmer once say he had over 300 mating nucs, and I know Ian said he ran 100 plus. Other things they have in common are that you need a queen-less colony with a lot of bees. There are countless videos on how to put together a cell starter. Michael Palmer has a starter that's four boxes tall and overflowing with bees, probably more bees in that thing than I have in my back yard. The first thing one needs to do is find and remove the queen. Right! I played where's waldo with my kids years ago and wan't very good at it then, eyes certainly haven't gotten better. In the video they all simply pull up a frame and say; "oh there she is". I have a theory about this, if you look at the same things all day every day it gets easier to spot the one that's different. These videos are great and I hope that all of you keep at it. Fact is that in about six years I plan to retire from machine work and breed queens, (will look for a teenager with good eyes and steady hand to do my grafts). In the meantime I want to learn as much as possible.
So what about the middle aged beekeeper who has one or two hives. He/she is wearing bifocals, doesn't really want to try grafting microscopic larvae but has a colony with seven frames of brood and five frames of honey. Certainly a candidate to split. (I think I just described myself, except now I wear bifocal contact lenses which are awesome). A simple split is to just put two frames of brood and a frame of food in a nuc with some frames of foundation or comb. Just hope they can queen themselves. This is done every day somewhere with success. But for the do-it yourselfer, I want to make my own queen, or get my bees to make one for me.
I watched the Fat Beeman do a video where he cut comb with eggs and larvae and squashed it to a frame. Really pretty simple, I don't need to handle larvae and the age isn't really a factor. The bees will choose the one they want. This is just my speed to make a couple of queens.
So what do we need to do this? First a strong colony, I run all medium boxes so I'm looking for at least three boxes full of bees. Could probably do the same thing with a deep and medium. I want to mate the queens before doing the split so I'll need some sort of mating nuc(s). I could make some or make a divider board and reduce a five frame nuc down to 2 frames. Could get bold and modify a 5 frame nuc with a small entrance on each side and split the middle, make a double mating box, sort of what people call a queen castle. Keeping things as simple as possible I'd just need two nuc boxes. Being in Florida, pretty much everything I have has a screen bottom. The cell starter needs ventilation, either a screened bottom or screened sides. Since I plan to do this a lot I made a deep nuc with 2 inch holes in the lower sides and covered the inside with hardware cloth.
Getting started means I need a queenless box of bees. I don't want to spend hours looking for the queen so here's my solution. One to three days before I want to do my "grafts" I'll shake all of the bees down into the lower box(s), put on a queen excluder and put at least two frames of brood and 2 frames of food in the top box. On grafting day I'll take a frame of food with all of the bees on it and put it in my special starter nuc, then shake all of the bees off the brood frames. Might shake a couple more frames just to be sure I have enough bees. Seal them up in the box with 1 frame of food, at least 1 frame of comb or foundation and a wet sponge in a container of water. Now wait three or four hours. Four hours later, if I have another colony I'll go there for "grafts", if not I'm going straight to the bottom box. Looking for a frame of drawn comb with eggs and larvae. I'll cut strips about three cells wide and 20 long that have the youngest brood I can find. Maybe two or three strips. Lay them on a frame top bar so the cells will be vertical and smash the ends into the bar groove. It might distort the cells a bit but the bees will fix them if they want. Put this bar in the cell starter and leave them closed up over night. The next day, 24-30 hours later, I open the box and check for any acceptance. Then put the frame and all of the bees back in the first box above the excluder to be finished.
Tried this just this past Sunday. Check out the results.
So what about the middle aged beekeeper who has one or two hives. He/she is wearing bifocals, doesn't really want to try grafting microscopic larvae but has a colony with seven frames of brood and five frames of honey. Certainly a candidate to split. (I think I just described myself, except now I wear bifocal contact lenses which are awesome). A simple split is to just put two frames of brood and a frame of food in a nuc with some frames of foundation or comb. Just hope they can queen themselves. This is done every day somewhere with success. But for the do-it yourselfer, I want to make my own queen, or get my bees to make one for me.
I watched the Fat Beeman do a video where he cut comb with eggs and larvae and squashed it to a frame. Really pretty simple, I don't need to handle larvae and the age isn't really a factor. The bees will choose the one they want. This is just my speed to make a couple of queens.
So what do we need to do this? First a strong colony, I run all medium boxes so I'm looking for at least three boxes full of bees. Could probably do the same thing with a deep and medium. I want to mate the queens before doing the split so I'll need some sort of mating nuc(s). I could make some or make a divider board and reduce a five frame nuc down to 2 frames. Could get bold and modify a 5 frame nuc with a small entrance on each side and split the middle, make a double mating box, sort of what people call a queen castle. Keeping things as simple as possible I'd just need two nuc boxes. Being in Florida, pretty much everything I have has a screen bottom. The cell starter needs ventilation, either a screened bottom or screened sides. Since I plan to do this a lot I made a deep nuc with 2 inch holes in the lower sides and covered the inside with hardware cloth.
Getting started means I need a queenless box of bees. I don't want to spend hours looking for the queen so here's my solution. One to three days before I want to do my "grafts" I'll shake all of the bees down into the lower box(s), put on a queen excluder and put at least two frames of brood and 2 frames of food in the top box. On grafting day I'll take a frame of food with all of the bees on it and put it in my special starter nuc, then shake all of the bees off the brood frames. Might shake a couple more frames just to be sure I have enough bees. Seal them up in the box with 1 frame of food, at least 1 frame of comb or foundation and a wet sponge in a container of water. Now wait three or four hours. Four hours later, if I have another colony I'll go there for "grafts", if not I'm going straight to the bottom box. Looking for a frame of drawn comb with eggs and larvae. I'll cut strips about three cells wide and 20 long that have the youngest brood I can find. Maybe two or three strips. Lay them on a frame top bar so the cells will be vertical and smash the ends into the bar groove. It might distort the cells a bit but the bees will fix them if they want. Put this bar in the cell starter and leave them closed up over night. The next day, 24-30 hours later, I open the box and check for any acceptance. Then put the frame and all of the bees back in the first box above the excluder to be finished.
Tried this just this past Sunday. Check out the results.
So next Wednesday I'll put together some mating nucs and put cells in them. There's a video in the works when this is all done. Just wanted to get this part out there. Obviously there's no way to use everything they're making. I figure I could probably make some cuts and get cells to put in up to five boxes. I only need two so maybe I'll call around and see if anyone wants a cell. Stay tuned.
Thursday, June 7, 2018
Hard lesson in queen rearing
I've been self teaching, with the help of YouTube, to breed queens. Or actually rear them, breeding would imply specific genetics and traits and all I'm trying to do is successfully get some mated queens. My purpose is simply to have some for the occasional club member who loses their queen. The thought is that even a poor queen is better than no queen. In any case. I grafted on Sunday two weeks back, then last Monday put six cells in cages to emerge on Friday. I was going to be out of town and figured the bees would feed the new queens. Found out a hard lesson that it's not so. On Sunday, of the six caged, four emerged and three died. Although it seems controversial, I think I'll put a little honey in the cages next time if I have to be away. On a different note. While working the club yard Sunday we found a weak colony with a wax moth infestation in the top box. Moved the frames around and consolidated the best frames into one box. In the process we found the queen. I caught her and intended to mark her but she got away. Looked in the box today and they have 4 capped and 4 un-capped queen cells. I look at it this way, the old queen wasn't very good, population was down and not a lot of brood. So maybe her daughter will do better. Along the same lines. Mary, Ed and I went to Indian Harbour Beach Sunday and removed a colony from under an old bird gazebo. Very calm bees, we didn't even light a smoker. Mary took home a nuc with five frames of comb and brood. I put together a single 8 frame box with brood comb and a frame of honey. Today there are at least five capped queen cells in the cut out (didn't look at all frames) and Mary says there are cells on her nuc too. Will wait until the 24th to go in again.
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