Winterize

Well it is the end of October. We have been preparing our hives for winter since the honey crop was removed on September first. I have come to learn that next years beekeeping begins now in the fall. In order to have strong hives next spring the colonies need to be properly prepared in the fall. I will say it again… The success of next years beekeeping depends on what we do now.

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Above: A hive top feed being installed on a colony. You can see that a pollen substitute patty, and a Crisco and sugar patty has been installed in the hive. The pollen patty ensures nutrition. The Crisco and sugar patty treats varroa and trachea mites.

Some people are beehavers. They have bees, there bees die, they get more bees, they have them, those bees die.

Some people are beekeepers. They keep there bees healthy year after year.

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Above: 2:1 sugar syrup being poured into the hive top feeder. The bees will collect this sugar syrup and store it for food to be consumed this winter.

I have been amazed that our mite problem still exists in the previously treated hives. Once high levels of varroa mite levels are detected, treatment of the hives began immediately. It takes 3 weeks to treat with formic acid pads, and with the weather getting cooler the formic acid vapors will not be as effective as they were in early September.

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Above: Robbing was so bad this year that I had to install weather stripping between the feeders and the cover to prevent bees from stealing the sugar syrup.

Our winter preparations in October and the first two weeks of November include the following.

1: Colonies are inspected for health. Is the colony strong? Is the colony health? Is there an adequate number of bees to insure the colonies survival through the winter months. Have the bees produced enough comb to store food. Sometimes the combs of bees need to be rearranged so that all the drawn comb and honey stores are located in the upper brood chamber. Empty frames and un-drawn frames of foundation are moved to the lower brood chamber. Since the bees will over-winter in the top box, this should be the location of most of their stores.


2: The hives are inspected for adequate winter stores of pollen and honey. If there is less than 50 lbs of honey in the colony the hives will be fed with a 2:1 ration of sugar syrup. Two parts sugar to one part water. All our colonies are fed sugar syrup and pollen substitute to insure they have more than enough supplies for winter.

Robbing has been a big problem this year. One drop of syrup outside the hive causes thousands of bees to go searching for the syrup. Once this starts hives will attempt to rob other hives of their winter stores. The battle is amazing to watch, but it is not good for the bees. Because of this problem we have installed entrance reducers on all the hives to help them protected themselves against robbing.

3: Mouse guards and entrance reducers are installed on all the hives to keep mice from building nests in the dry cozy hives.

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Above: Formic acid pads installed over a colony in order to reduce the varroa mites.

4: All colonies are evaluated for varroa mites. If varroa mites are found in large numbers the colonies are treated for varroa and trachea mites using formic acid applications.

5: Ventilation will be provided above the colonies to allow moisture out of the hive. By placing two square toothpicks under the back side of the inner cover, a ventilation space is created. This ventilation will keep moisture from building up on the underside of the cover which would drip on the colony. The cold will not harm a healthy cluster of bees, but cold damp conditions will. I also install a layer of newspaper above the ventilation space. This newspaper will absorb any moisture that may collect, keeping it from effecting the colony.

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Above: Entrance reducers and mouse guards are installed on the hives to prevent the entrance of mice. The mice love to spend the winter in the dry hives. Once inside the mice will destroy the comb to make room for it's nest. You can see the bees bringing in the fall pollen.

6: Review this past seasons beekeeping notes. Identify what went wrong and why. Correct these deficiencies.

Learn by your mistakes!

The Great Extraction

On September 1st we removed and extracted the honey from our hives here on the Cape. As suspected and commented on in previous posts it was a very lean year honey wise.

With the potential to produce 350 pounds of honey our hives produced only 28 pounds. Some beekeepers in our area did not get any honey from there hives this year. The combination of a very cold spring, and a very dry summer created no abundance of nectar. What little the bees collected was used to keep the hive running.

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Right: A frame of capped honey

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The process of extracting honey consists of first removing the honey supers from the hives. To achieve this, bee escape boards are placed between the honey supers (boxes) and the brood chamber (where the bees raise their young). Over a few days the bees leave the honey super and are unable to return to it through the escape board. The honey boxes can then be removed.

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Left: Uncapping the honey comb with a hot electric knife

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Honey is produced by the collection of nectar from the local flowers. The nectar contains about 1% sugar. The bees collect the nectar and store it in the cells of the comb. The water is evaporated from the nectar leaving only the sugar behind. Once the honey is “ripe” (completed) the bees cap over the cells with a white wax. The wax capping seals the cells and keeps the honey from absorbing moisture from the air. The honey is now sealed in a air tight container of wax. Normally the bees would save the honey and use it as food during the winter months. The cell would be uncapped when the honey was needed as food. Fortunately for the beekeeper bees are hoarders of honey. They will produce much more honey than they need to survive the winter.

The Beekeeper can take for himself what the bees will not need. Yum.

The extraction process starts with the removal of the white wax cappings. A hot electric knife is used to cut the wax cappings off the comb exposing the liquid honey in the cells. Frames of honey which are not capped are not extracted. Uncapped honey may contain excess water which will in time cause the honey to ferment. Only ripe capped honey comb is extracted.

Once the frame of honey is uncapped it is placed in a centrifuge (extractor). The comb is spun in the extractor and centrifugal force causes the liquid honey out of the comb and into the extractor. The empty combs are then removed and stored to be used again next season.

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Right: Our two fram hand crank extractor

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The best part of extracting is the sent of hot honey produced by the electric uncapping knife. The smell is indescribably sweet.

Once the honey gate is open liquid honey pours out into a series of screens designed to remove any wax which may be in the honey. The honey drips through the screens into a honey bucket. Each bucket holds about 60 pounds of honey.

The honey is stored for 24 hours which allows any small particles of wax to float to the top of the honey bucket. The honey is then poured from the bottom of the pail through a honey gate and into the bottles.

Each years honey is different from the previous years, depending on what flowers the honey was collected from. As you can see, this years honey was very dark, compared to last years honey which was very golden.

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Left: Extracted liquid honey pouring into the filter screens

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Once the honey is removed from the hive, preparations begin for the over wintering of the hives.

But more about that next time.

Escaping Bees and Counting Mites

Well it’s now the end of August here on Cape Cod. It has been a great summer, weather wise, but the worst honey production year I have seen since I started keeping bees in 1978.
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Left: The dreaded Varroa mite. The mite population increases through the summer months and can reach damaging numbers.
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We are averaging about 10 lbs of honey per producing hive, and only 3 out of 7 hives are producing any honey. Last years yield was 60 lbs of honey per hive. This honey season has been a disappointing one. As a beekeeper, at this point, I can not see what could have been done better to produce more honey. The biggest factor was the spring weather. It was cold too long for the bees to build up in numbers and to take advantage of the spring honey flow. Then when the spring honey flow finally started, three weeks late, it was over too fast.
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Right: A screened bottom board with a sticky board installed. The screened bottom board allows Varroa mites to fall out of a colony and not climb back in. The sticky board is installed to collect the fallen mites in order to observe their numbers.
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August is when the Varroa mites show up in their greatest numbers. Detected in Kentucky in 1991 they have quickly spread throughout the country. A few years ago the cape lost about 80% of its bee colonies because of the Varroa Mites. The mites attach themselves to the bees, feeding off of them, weakening them, and spreading disease.
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Right: A sticky board being removed from the screened bottom board after a 24 hour period. The mite levels found on the board will reveal if there is a mite population problem inside the hive.
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A week ago I conducted a 24 hour mite drop count on all the colonies. Since I maintain a screened bottom board on most of the colonies, a slide in sticky board was used to collect falling mites over a 24 hour period. The sticky board is then removed and the mites counted. If only a few are found then it is an indication that the mite population is low within the colony. My mite count was in the hundreds in two of the colonies, with high counts in a third, and low counts in the others. I have never experienced mites in these numbers before. The trend was that the over-wintered colonies had a much higher mite count than the colonies started in 2007.
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Right: Enlarged area of the sticky board. Among the debris are great numbers of varroa mites. Not good news.
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Before the hives can receive any type of medications or treatments the Honey must be removed from the hive. I installed escape boards which allow the bees to exit the honey supers, and not return. Within two to three days almost all the bees will have exited the honey supers into the brood chambers below where the queen is. After removing all of the honey, I was able to start formic acid treatments. Formic acid is found naturally in the colony. Adding formic acid pads inside the colony raises the formic acid level within the colony. This increased level does not hurt the bees, but kills both Varroa and Trachea mites. The treatment lasts 3 weeks after which the hives will be tested again for Varroa mites to insure their numbers are under control. Once the formic acid pads are removed, the acid levels return to normal.
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Left: Closeup of the sticky board. Oil spray (like pam) is used on the board to keep the mites in place once they fall onto the board.
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Since honey production was so low this year, the hives do not contain much honey for the bees to live on through the winter. We have started feeding the bees with a 1:1 ratio of sugar and water. The supplemental feeding has started early this year so the bees will have enough time to store it in the brood chamber.
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Left: The bottom of a bee escape board. The bees can come down through the round hole, and out the small openings, but are to dumb to find there way back. Once placed between the honey supers and the brood chamber this board will evacuate the bees from the honey super in three days.
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I am hoping that there will be an abundance of Goldenrod bloom this fall. The Goldenrod is the last major producer of nectar and pollen for the bees before the frost and cold weather set in.
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Right: Installed bee escape board.
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We will be extracting what honey we can this weekend!

That’s always fun!
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Left: Bees feeding on pollen patty supplements. This stimulates brood production.
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Lightning Management

Well it is August, a dull time for bees on Cape Cod. The main nectar flow has been over for two weeks, so there is not much for 60,000 bees to do but sit around and watch the honey ripen. Once the bees have evaporated the proper amount of water out of the honey the cells of comb will be capped with a beautiful layer of white wax. The wax capping will protect the honey until it is needed by the bees for food this winter.
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Right: Honey bees collecting water. The water will be used to cool the hive on hot summer days.
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On hot days the bees will be busy collecting water to keep the hive cool, and searching about to find what little pollen and nectar they can. For the beekeeper it is time to estimate how much surplus honey has been produced by the bees, that is how much honey the bees have produced for the beekeeper. We will be extracting honey towards the end of August. This will leave time to feed the bees if necessary, examine them for disease and treat them accordingly

This was a poor honey production year. What should have produce 350 lbs of honey will only produce around 50. The cold spring did not allow the colonies to build up in size enough to take advantage of the spring honey flow. Perhaps the fall Golden Rod will produce some extra honey for the hives, but not for the beekeeper. Honey production was so low this year that supplemental feeding will be necessary to ensure the colonies have enough honey stored for winter.
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Left: Thats me, working the bees in the thunder and lightning.
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Last week I was caught in a thunder and lightning rain storm while working the bees out on one of the cranberry bogs. Needless to say I was a little concerned for myself. There was lightning and loud thunder all around me. The bees didn’t seem to care about the danger I was in. They were actually calm during the whole ordeal.

I wasn’t.
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Right: Beautiful brood pattern layed by one of my home grown queens.
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My queen rearing project has produced four nice queens. You can see from the photograph that they are laying a nice solid pattern of brood. Today I introduced one into a colony who’s queen is failing. Earlier this morning I prepared some queen cage candy by mixing 1 cup of powdered sugar to about 3 table spoons of corn syrup to make a bread dough like candy. This candy is placed into one end of the queen cage, and the queen and some attendant workers placed in the other end, covered by a screen. The plans is, that once the cage is introduced into a queenless colony, the bees will eat the candy out of one end, releasing the queen into the colony. It takes about 3 days for the bees to eat their way through the candy. By the time the queen is released, her “queen sent” has been passed through the entire colony, and she is accepted as their queen. If not, they kill her and try to raise their own queen.
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Right: Queen cages filled with queen cage candy, ready for use.
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This time of year is a difficult one to try to get a colony to accept a new queen. They are very protective of the hive. Because of the lack of a nectar flow, colonies of bees will try to rob weaker colonies of their honey. The bees are very sensitive to any intrusion into the hive this time of year.
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Right: A queen in her cage, ready for introduction into a colony.
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Maybe they somehow sense that in a few weeks a lot of their honey will be missing from their hives, and found on my pantry shelf!
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Left: A bee on my shirt
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The Queen has returned

After introducing the queen cells into mating nucs 10 days ago, I finally got to the mating yard to look at the results of my grafting attempt of July 1st.
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Left: The mating yard offered to me by two fellow beekeepers, Paul and Claire.
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With much anticipation I opened the first mating nuc, and pulled out the queen cell and queen cell protector. It had emerged!

My next step was to inspected the two frames of bees in the mating nuc to see if the queen had successfully bee accepted as part of the hive.

In order for her to have been successful she would have to have completed the following.
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Right: Opening the first two frame nuc to see if the queen had emerged from her cell. You can see the plastic cell protector resting between the two frames of bees.
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1. Successfully emerge from the queen cell.
2. Be accepted by the bees as leader of the hive
3. Conduct two to three mating flights where she would have to successfully mate with up to 15 male bees (drones)
4. Finder her way back to the hive without being lost or eaten by a bird
5. Start to lay fertilized (female) eggs.

Sure enough I found her on the first frame I checked. Could she have begun to lay eggs? Sure enough she was on a frame containing eggs and very young larva. Success!
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Right: An unmarked mated queen was found in the first mating nuc. 6 mated queens were produced from my second grafting attempt.
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Needless to say I was pleased.

I had brought yellow paint (the marking color for 2007) so I could mark any queens I found, but as I attempted to pick her up to mark her back (Thorax) with the paint, she flew away onto a bush. I rushed over and tried to pick her up, but she flew out of my hand into the grass. I quickly went to grasp her but she flew into the dirt, I went over and picked her up, and she flew away into the cranberry bog.

I was not pleased.

Would she return? Was she lost forever?

Sure enough after a few minutes she returned, and I was able to mark her. I guess she was not about to go through all that work only to have me mess it up.
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Right: A marked queen. The newly produced queens are marked in yellow. Yellow is the standard queen marking color for 2007.
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I continued to check the other mating nucs. Out of 9 queen cells 6 hatched and mated successfully. One of the mating nucs had an empty queen cell, but no bees or queen were found inside.

Perhaps they did not like their new home and decided to find a new place to live.

Of the 7 queens, 6 are large healthy looking queens. One however is on the smaller size.
Here is the summery of the July 1, 2007 grafting attempt
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Left: A closeup of the marked mated queen.
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July 1: >90 grafts are made into plastic queen cups.
The queen cups are placed in a queen cup frame and placed into a cell builder
hive

July 3: >Queen cups are inspected. 10 cells have been started from the grafts.

July 15: >8 cells are introduced into two frame mating nucs containing bees. Two cells are
destroyed. One accidentally when removing it from the cell cup frame, the other
is dissected to see if the queens are developing

July 22: >7 queens successfully emerge, mate, and start producing.

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Right: Activity outside the mating nucs. Four, two frame mating nucs are contained in one standard deep super. Each two frame nuc has a seporate entrance.

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Now we will watch and evaluate them. Over the next two months they will show their true colors.

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I will be looking for a nice brood pattern (laying pattern), and a quiet disposition from her offspring.

Looking for genetic diversity

To continue documenting my progress with raising queens let me first say this….


It ain’t been easy.

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Left: A queen cell frame containg 7 queen cells. Out of 90 grafts 10 queen cells were made by the bees.

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Out of 90 grafts I made two weeks ago, 10 were accepted by the bees and made into queen cells. The cells that were produced by the bees were smaller than the two cells I got from the 30 grafts made on my first grafting attempt.

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Right: A close up of two of the queen cells from my second grafting attempt.

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Grafting is the process by which a small 3 or 4 day old worker bee larva is transferred into a larger artificial cell. This cell containing the grafted larva is then placed into a queenless hive. The bees, being queenless, will attempt to raise a queen bee in these artificial cells by adding wax to the artificial cell, and feed the larva royal jelly. If all goes according to plan, 12 days after grafting the cell a mature virgin queen will emerge from each cell.

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Left: A grafted cell 48 hours after the graft. You can see that the bees have already started adding wax to some of the cells.

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As I stated earlier, out of 90 grafted cells, only 10 were accepted. On my two attempts I am averaging about a 10% acceptance rate. This could partially be due to the dry days I have grafted on. It is said that there is a better acceptance rate when the relative humidity is around 70%.

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Left: A queen cell in a plastic cell protector. The cell will be removed from the frame and placed in a small nuc hive containing two frames of bees and brood, but no queen. If all goes well, a virgin queen will emerge from the cell and be accepted by the bees.

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Yesterday I harvested the cells and placed them into small nuc hives containing two deep frames of bees. The queen cells should be emerging today. We will see in a few days if it has been successful.

So far this is where my attempts have failed. My two original grafted cells failed to emerge. Looking back this was probably due to the fact that I transferred the cells into small nuc hives on the 8th day after grafting when the cells were just capped. We had two cold nights after that. The small amount of bees in the nuc hive may not have been able to keep the cell warm. Now that the temperatures are consistently in the 80’s, that problem should go away.

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Right: A frame of bees. This frame has young bees emerging from the cells. A 2007 queen laid eggs on this frame. It was a solid beautiful pattern of brood. You can still see some of the original solid pattern of brood in the left part of the frame. Every cell is filled with brood.

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As part of this queen rearing exercise I have introduced a new queen into one of my hives. She is a northern queen from a survivor stock of bees. A survivor queen means just that. The bees have survived for a number of years with out medications or any special help. Next year her genetics will be added to the gene pool in the area. Any queens mating with here offspring may inherit some or all of her ability to survive.

I was offered a mating yard across town by two local beekeepers. The area has a large number of managed hives so there should be plenty of male bees for the virgin queens to mate with. In addition there is a good amount of genetic diversity, something I am looking for in this experiment.

It is my hope that increasing the amount of genetic diversity will allow a greater combination of matting possibilities.

Who knows, perhaps we will get a spectacular queen.

The "mother queen's" daughter

This weekend I checked the nucs to see if the queens had mated. Neither of the two miller frame queen cells were accepted by the nucs. At least the queens were no where to be found.

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One of the two queen cells produced from my first attempt at grafting. 2 out of 30 cells were accepted.

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It was obvious that the queens had emerged from the queen cells, but the queens did not return from their mating flights. I did find one emergency queen cell in one of the mating nucs. These bees must have rejected the queen in favor of one that they are raising themselves.

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My first mated and laying queen. She is the only daughter from my best queen who went missing a few weeks ago. This daughter will be introduced into her mothers hive.

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Of the 30 grafted queen cups placed in the cell builder hive, only two queen cells were produced. That is less than a 10% acceptance rate. This is not as good as I expected, even for a first try at grafting. Since the queen cells were capped I placed them in cell protectors and introduced them into mating nucs consisting of two deep frames of bees each. These grafted queen cells are scheduled to emerge on July 4th or 5th.

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A frame of eggs and larva. Newly hatched larva was taken from this frame and grafted into queen cell cups.

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One happy discovery was to find a mated queen in the third mating nuc. This queen was raised by the bees from an egg from the mother queen which has since gone missing. Since she is the only daughter produced by my favorite queen, I am introducing her into her mothers hive (which is still queenless, and now broodless). With in a few days she should be accepted by the hive and be laying. To introduce her I placed the frames of bees from the nuc into a deep hive body. The hive body was then placed over two sheets of news paper above the queenless colony. The bees will chew a hole in the newspaper within a day or so. By that time the new queens scent will be distributed in the hive and with any luck the bees will accept her as their new queen.

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90 grafted queen cups

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Since the cell builder hive is now without any queen cells, I added two frames of brood an bees, as well as two grafted frames holding 90 grafted cell cups. If I only have a 10% acceptance rate I should end up with at least 9 queen cells if not more.

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A closeup of the grafted cells. You can see the very young larva floating on a drop of royal jelly

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48 hours will tell.

The Mother Of All Queens Is MIA

Todays activities included grafting queen cells for the first time. I had intended to use eggs form the Mother Queen of my best hive. Upon opening the hive I could not find any eggs or larva. This is the hive I tipped over on June 8th when removing the miller frame from the hive. I thought that she was ok, Perhaps she was injured and died. There were no queen cells found in the hive. Perhaps I destroyed them during an inspection, not knowing that the queen was gone. On June 21 I examined the miller frame to find one large queen cell still intact. I moved this frame along with a frame of bees and brood to a queen mating nuc. The queen should emerge from the cell in a day or two. It will then take up to two weeks for the virgin queen to mate and start laying eggs.
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Grafted plastic cell cups which have been pressed into the cell bar prior to grafting. Each bar holds 15 plastic cups.
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I took a frame of eggs and larva from my next best hive. The hive has proven to be strong, but the bees are average in temperament and not as gentle as the mother queen I had hoped to use.
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Cell bars with attached grafted plastic cell cups place in the cell bar frame. The frame is upside down, and will hang opposite in the cell builder hive.
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See the frame of larva in the background?
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Grafting is an interesting process.

The best queens are raised from larva that is newly hatched so I wanted to graft the smallest larva on the frame. The frame I selected from had everything from capped brood to eggs. With my reading glasses on it was easy to compare the sizes of the larva to make sure the youngest larva was selected. I used warm moist towels to keep the grafts warm and to keep them from drying out prior to transferring them into the cell building hive. After about 10 failures I was able to transfer the larva into the plastic cell cups. Since I created the cell building hive on June 1st it now contains, a few emerging brood, no eggs, no larva, and of course no queen. The only larva in the hive will be the young larva I grafted. If the bees accept the grafts they will begin to build queen cells from them. In 36 hours I should be able to see the results of the grafts.
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The cell bar frame inserted into the queen cell builder hive. This hive has no queen, larva, or eggs other than what has been added with the cell cups.
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I am hoping I will have more control of the process with the grafted cells verses the miller frame method used in prior weeks. There will be no question about the age of the larva and the expected emergence date of the queens. With the miller frame. eggs and larva of various ages could have been used by the bees to rear queens. Since the bees select which lava to turn into queens, there is less control. With the grafting method, since I was the one to select the larva, there should only be, at the most, 24 hours difference in the age of the queen cells.
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From left to right. 10 frame cell builder hive, 4 section mating nuc, 4 section mating nuc. You can see the sugar syrup feeders. Only one of the mating nuc sections is in use. It contains a queen cell from the miller frame use peviously
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36 hours will tell.

Where have all the queen cells gone ?

Where have all the queen cells gone ?
Long time passing
Where have all the queen cells gone ?
Long time ago
Where have all the queen cells gone ?
Gone to graveyards,
every one.
When will I ever learn ?
When will I ever learn ?


Of course that’s not really how the song goes, but it is the song I have been singing this week.

Yes it is true. For some still unknown reason, the beautiful queen cells which the bees had been raising, have been destroyed.

I conducted a hive inspection on June 18th with the intent of starting my mating nucs and transferring the queen cells into the mating nucs. I found that all the queen cells had been either destroyed, or the larva was dead in the uncapped cells. What happened? An inspection this week should tell. I expect it could have been one of four things.
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The Miller frame, full of queen cells (13) on June 16th. On June 18th the cells were dead.
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First: The cold nights combined with the screened bottom board could have chilled the queen cells and caused the queen larva to die.

There were two unseasonably cold nights a week and a half ago. Temperatures dropped into the low 40’s which could have chilled the larva. Since this is a miller frame and it was not fully drawn out there were not as many bees on the frame as on the others. However, the miller frame was in the middle of a very strong hive. The bees should have been able to keep them warm.

Second: My math could have been wrong.

Perhaps one or more queens were raised from larva that was older than I thought, allowing a virgin queen to emerge and destroy the other cells before the expected emergence date. Lets see. The miller frame with eggs was taken from the mother hive and installed in the cell building hive on June 8th. If the eggs (assumed 3 days old ) were installed in the cell builder on the 8th then the queens would be emerging 13 days later (16 – 3) on June 21st. No the math is ok. An inspection on the 18th should have shown capped queen cells. There was at least a 2 day buffer before the queens should have emerged.


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This photo from June 16th appears to show a dammaged queen cell. Are the workers building or tearing down?
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Third: I could have missed one of the queen cells raised by the bees from an older larva.

As soon as a virgin queen emerges she hunts down competing queen cells and destroys them. If the bees started raising a queen from larva when the cell builder hive was started on June 8th the bees could have started a queen from larva that was 6 days old (unlikely). That would put queen emergence on the 18th, the same day as my inspection.


Fourth: A queen cell was transferred into the Cell builder when it was created on June 8th.

This seams to be the most likely explanation. A started queen cell (which would have been very small) was inadvertently installed into the cell builder hive when it was assembled. Although the hive was inspected for erroneous queen cells which were destroyed, if one was missed it would have emerged before the 18th, giving the virgin queen time to destroy the cells.

If a queen is found in the cell builder this weekend it will resolve the mystery.

The lesson I’ve learned through this is that it is very important to know how old the larva is when starting a queen cell. The miller method allows queens to be started which could be 3 or 4 days in age apart. When the miller frame is installed in the hive it probably has eggs and larva. The bees can select any age larva to start queen cells from. This means that the queens raised from this larva will emerge at various times, and the queen cells will be in various stages of development throughout the queen rearing procedure. It seams that grafting larva the same age into queen cups would insure that the queens being raised are all within one day of each other in age. If the weather permits I will attempt to graft cells this weekend and continue this experiment.
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Left: My first virgin queen. This queen was raised by moving a frame of eggs and larva along with two frames of bees into a nuc. The bees raised their own queen. She emerged from her sell just prior to the inspection on June 16th.
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On a positive note. There was one cell which seamed to be intact. It was installed in a queenless mating nuc. We will see if the queen emerges this weekend as well.

The queen cell started on the 1st of the month and installed in a nuc had emerged. The virgin queen was seen walking around on the comb. If she has mated she will be laying eggs this coming week.

The Mother of All Queens (2)

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A bee with yellow June Pollen
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The cold raw June Cape Cod weather finally broke today. It was partly sunny with temperatures in the low 70’s or high 60’s. It has been damp with rain on and off with the night temperatures the past four days falling into the 50’s, Not good weather for honey production. This has been a very difficult season for the bees already.

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On June 10th there was a break in the weather before the temperature dropped. I took the opportunity to look at the Miller frame of eggs I had installed in the Cell Building Hive (see previous post). 48 hours had past. As you can see in the photo the bees had started drawing out 4 queen cells. I looked through the rest of the hive and removed queen cells from all other frames, about 4 cells.

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The queen cells on the miller frame are being started from newly hatched eggs. Since the frame only had eggs on it, and not hatched young larva, the queen cells will be moved into queen mating nuc hives on June 19th or 20th.

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The Miller frame on June 1st prior to it's insertion into the "Mother Queen" hive

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Today (June 15) I had the opportunity to inspect the queen building hive again. I found about 12 good size queen cells on the miller frame.

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After inspecting the rest of the hive, I removed 4 to 5 queen cells (capped and in the last stages ready to emerge) built on other frames. If I had waited another day or two all my efforts could have been defeated by these cells. It was obvious that there is plenty of royal jelly being produced in the hive. Royal jelly is essential for queen rearing since it is the only food the queens feed on.

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The Miller Frame on June 10th. 48 hours after it was removed from the "Mother Queen" hive and inserted into the "Cell Builder" hive. The bees have started to build four queen cells.
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The best queens will be raised on lots of royal jelly. These rival cells need to be destroyed in order to insure that they will not emerge and destroy the miller frame queen cells.

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This miller frame is my controlled frame. I know the age of the eggs and I know which queen (hive properties and genetics) these eggs are from. Since I know the age of the miller frame, I can accurately calculate the date the queen will emerge from theses cells.

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A queen takes 16 days to develop from egg to larva. Since these eggs were laid on June 7th or 8th, virgin queens will emerge from the queen cells on June 23rd (16th day from egg laying). Since 12 queen cells have been produced I will need 12 mating nucs to place the cells in (one cell per mating nuc) on day 14 (June 21st ).

I spent a few hours painting the mating nuc covers and bottom boards I built a few months ago. They will have to be stocked with bees (2 frames each) on day 13 (June 20th). Once the queens emerge from their cells they will take up to a week to mate and start laying eggs. There is only a 75% success rate in the mating of queens. I have lots of drones (male bees) in my other hives, and I know the beekeeper who has bees less than a mile away from me. There should be plenty of drones in the area for the queens to mate with.

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It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few weeks. At this point I am happy with the success of my first effort. Once the daytime temperature reaches 75 to 80 degrees, I am planning to try my hand at grafting queen cells. We will talk about that when the time comes.
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The Miller Frame 7 days after being inserted into the "Cell Builder" hive. There are 7 queen cells on this side of the frame, and 5 queen cells on the other side.

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Now an update on honey production. My three strong hives, including the mother queen hive, are starting to store nectar in the honey supers. Two of the hives are now producing round comb honey, one hive is producing liquid honey. Of the other hives, one has been struggling all spring. They are still only on 5 frames in the bottom box of the hive, compared to my best hive which has 24 frames of bees, produced the miller frame of eggs, and donated 6 frames of bees to the queen rearing project.

Not to mention the fact that it was knocked over by me during and inspection!.

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A queen cell produce under uncontrolled conditions.

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I will be inspecting the hives for swarming preparation this weekend.

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I will post more results next week.