Hot and humid days

It has been over a month since my last post.

During the last week of June I placed 13 queen cells into queen-less nuc hives. These queens, once emerged, would mate naturally and start to lay eggs in about 14 days and build new colonies.

Above:  Four mating nucs ready for queen cell introduction.

The jars will be filled with sugar syrup to feed the nucs.

Unfortunately this year’s early spring lead to early hot and humid weather.

The main honey flow stopped a month early, and because we were feeding sugar syrup to the nuc colonies, robbing ensued. Many of the mating nucs and new queens were destroyed by strong colonies that came and killed bees while robbed them of their honey and syrup.

Only 3 mated queens survived.

Left:  Virgin queens in queen cages.  These queens are being taken care of by nurse bees.  They have been placed in a queenbank colony.

As part of an experiment I had taken eight of the queen cells and arranged them so the virgin queens would emerge into queen cages. These cages were placed into a queen-less, brood-less hive. The queens emerged into the cages and were taken care of by the surrounding nurse bees. Because the virgin queens would be in the cages, they would not be able to mate.

Right:  A closer view of the banked queens.  A special frame with wire guides hold the cages in place.  The plastic cell cup seals the top of the cage.







I have had some success over the past two years rising queens. One of my strongest hives this year is lead by a queen I produced last summer. She is the daughter of the queen from my strongest hive the previous year. I have noticed that the most uncontrollable part of queen rearing is the mating process.

Above:  You can see the open queen cell inside the cage

as well as the queen.  Nurse bees surround the queen and

feed here through the cage openings.  I'm sure they are trying

to find a way to get her out!

You can pick the best stock to breed from, graft the youngest larva, place them into the strongest cell starter colony, then place them into the largest cell builder, move the cells at the right time into mating nucs, have the cells emerge successfully….. Only to see your beautiful large, genetically selected queens fly off to mate with…. Well, any drone that comes along!

It is all left to chance at that point.

Above Left:  A screw lid jar is used to put the queen to sleep with carbon dioxcide.  It only takes a few minutes       
                                                     
Above Right: CO2 is dispensed through water so the flow can be seen and regulated.

It is apparent that the week link, the place where you loose control, in the process is mating. So I started looking into the process of instrumental insemination of honey bees. With II the breeder can control the mating process and select the specific genetic material to mix with the genetics of the virgin queen.

Above:  Insemination device I have been working on.  CO2

is fed through a hose to keep the queen asleep.

My intent was to take the caged virgin queens and use them to learn about the instrumental insemination process.

Above:  Working out the "bugs" in the system

Need smaller hooks and glass tips.

For several months I have been learning, designing, and building the equipment I believed to be required. I read books, blogs, web pages, and watched videos.

Left:  This queen was put to sleep, placed in the instrument, manipulated, but not inseminated.  She woke up about 15 minutes later.










Needless to say my first attempts have had some successes and many failors….

Right:  Second queen was put to sleep, manipulated, and woke up.  She was not inseminated.






But I have learned a lot.

I will share more in future posts.

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Queen Cells and Counting

In my previous post I described the steps I am taking this year with my queen rearing project.

As of my last post I had managed to get queen cells into cell builder colonies.

Above:  18 queen cells being removed from a queen-right cell builder colony. 

Some of these cells will be placed into queen-less mating nucs

Sunday afternoon I moved the queen cells from the cell builder hives into individual queen-less mating nucs. Usually I move the queen cells on day 14 (10 days after grafting, and two days before emergence on day 16) to the individual nucs.

Above:  As an experiment I kept 3 of the cells in the queen-less cell starter colony. 

As you can see I ended up with larger cells.

I moved them a day early (day 13) this year, because, last year I had 16 cells destroyed when one of the cells emerged early.

Step 7 Continued:

Ok, So at this point I had 21 cells, 18 in a queen right cell builder colony, as I described last week. On the 14th day (10 days from grafting, and two days before the queens emerge) the cells should be individually placed each into its own queen-less mating nuc.

Left:  By adding a frame of brood to the queen-less cell starter colony, I converted it into a queen-less cell builder colony that built larger cells.







Most of my mating nucs are regular deep hive bodies that I have divided into four compartments, each with its own separate entrance. Each compartment will hold two frames. Each compartment has a cover and a sugar syrup feeder.

To make up the nucs I take frames of bees and open larva from my hives and place them into the nucs. The nurse bees will stay with the brood to take care of it.

Above Left:  Cells from the queen-right cell builder.  Right: Cells from the queen-less cell starter.


\I place one frame of bees and brood, and one undrawn frame into each compartment. I then introduce a queen cell (with cell protectors) into each nuc.

You can see that it takes a lot of bees to raise queens. If you have 10 queen cells you need 10 mating nucs. If you have 50 queen cells you will need 50 mating nucs.

Above: One of the cells from the queen-less cell starter, converted to a cell bulder. 

You can see that there is still alot of royal jelly in the cell.

Step 8: Wait and allow the queens to emerge. Each queen will emerge on day 16 (10 days from grafting) into a nuc.

This nuc will become a little colony.

The bees will take care of the new virgin queen. In about a week she will take mating flights and mate with up to 35 drones (male bees). She will fly back to the hive, and if successful will start laying eggs in about another 7 days.

Above:  Cells from the queen-right cell builder

You can see there is no royal jelly in the cell.

Did the workers rob the royal jelly to feed to worker larva in the queen-right colony?

All the cells came from the same cell starter.  All the cells were over filled with royal jelly before they were placed in the cell builder colonies.  There is a difference!

This year I did not move all the cells into the queen-right cell builder. I left three cells in the queen-less cell starter colony. By adding a frame of emerging brood (no eggs or larva) to the cell starter I converted it into a cell builder colony. It was interesting to see that the queen-less cell starter colony built much larger cells than the queen-right cell builder colony.

It is obvious that the large number of nurse bees in the queen-less cell starter colony made a big difference in the quality of the cells. I expect I will get larger queens from the larger cells. In the future I plan to abandon the use of the queen-right cell builder in favor of a queen-less cell builder assembled specifically to build cells.

Right:  Red plastic cells and yellow plastic cells each contain larva grafted from different queens.  The cell color tells me which queen mother the cell is from.

Additionally I took eight of the cells and arranged them so the virgin queens will emerge into queen cages. These cages have been placed into a queen-less, brood-less hive. It is my hope that the workers will care for the emerged virgin queens.

I have plans for these eight virgins I may share with you at a later date.

Tomorrow 21 queens will be emerging. This weekend I will look in on them to see how the new queens are doing.

I’ll let you know.

Queen Season

Father’s Day. A holiday to commemorate all the hard working fathers. The perfect time of year to raise queens.

Generally, on Cape Cod, at this time of year, a colony will have built itself up to about 30,000 or 40,000 bees. Over the next month they will continue to increase in numbers to about 60,000. As the bees start to get crowded they start thinking about swarming.

Above:  Queen cup frame just pulled from my cell starter hive. 

After 36 hours the bees have started building queen cells. 

You can tell the accepted cells by the wax that has been added to the cell.

24 cells have been accepted out of 28 grafted cells

Swarming involves building queen cells. A beekeeper can use this natural tendency of the bees to raise his own queens.

It is always easier to work with the bees rather than against them.

Above:  Close up of the started cells

Here’s what I have been doing.

Step one.

Create a cell starter hive. Take a strong colony and locate the queen. Place her and the frame she is on aside. Now take all the frames that have open larva and shake the bees into a 5 frame nuc (at least 5 frames worth of nurse bees). What you are doing is shaking nurse bees into this nuc since they would be found on the frames with open larva. There can be no queen or they will reject the cells you put in the nuc later. That is why we located her and put her aside. To this nuc add one frame of pollen, one frame of nectar, and a wet sponge. The bottom of the nuc should be screened so the bees will not over heat. The entrance must be closed so the bees cannot return to their original colony. Put the cover on the nuc for now.

Above:  A well fed queen cell which is 36 hours old

You can see how the larva has grown in a day and a half!

Step Two

Choose the hive (queen mother) you plan to raise queens from. You will need her eggs! Of course you will select the strongest, best behaved, active, honey collecting colony you have to pick from. Locate the queen and put her aside. Also locate a frame of eggs and young larva (newly hatched) and brush all the bees off of it back into the colony you are taking it from. If you shake the frame you will also move the larva from the center of the cell it is in.

Step Three

Graft newly hatched larva, 3 days old, into primed plastic queen cell cups. I prime the cells with royal jelly I saved (froze) from the previous year. You will also have success if you prime the cells with a mixture of 50% plain yogurt and 50% water. Just a small drop in the center of each plastic cell will help you float the larva off the grafting tool. The larva should look like a comma. If it looks like a full C shape the larva is too old. Use the youngest larva you can find. Use a damp hand towel to cover the grafted cells so they do not dry out. Graft two bars of 14 cells each, that will be 28 cells all together.

Step Four

Place the queen cup frame into the cell starter hive you created earlier. Place the grafts between the two frames, pollen frame to one side, open nectar frame to the other. Now leave them alone for 24 to 48 hours. Place the frame of larva you took the grafts from, back into the hive you stole it from.

Above:  Same cell with wax removed.  See all the white

royal jelley in the cell?  I will harvest this and freeze it

for use next queen season

Step 5

Prepare a queen right cell builder hive. Open the hive and find the queen. Place her in the bottom hive super with all the empty and capped frames of brood. Place a queen excluder over the box with the queen and put all the open larva, pollen, and nectar in the box. Leave an open space between open larva and a frame of pollen to place your started cells. Leave this colony over night while your cells are in the cell starter hive. This will allow time for all the nurse bees in that colony to move to the upper box. It will be 3 days before any eggs the queen lays in the lower box to hatch and require nurse bees.

Step 6

After 24 to 48 hours open the cell starter hive and remove your grafts. You will be able to tell which cells have been accepted by the bees by the work they have started on the cell. Excepted cells will have wax being added to them. This year the bees started 24 cells out of 28 grafts. Not bad. Take the queen cell frame and place it into the cell builder hive you prepared the day before. This hive will feed and build the cells.

Above:  Just a side note.  I was pleased with the very

large crop of peas we produced in the garden this year.

Thanks polinators!

Step 7

Wait and count. It takes 16 days for a queen bee to be created. Remember that the larva you grafted is already 3 or 4 days old. The queens will hatch at 16 days old, only twelve days after you graft them. Before that happens you will need to move the individual cells into queen-less mating nucs, or a queen-banking hive.


More on that next time.......

You Thought You Could Stop Us

It has been 19 days since I destroyed queen cells in one of our hives. I believe the old queen was failing and the bees decided that, what was best for the hive, would be to replace her.

Right:  Emerged queen cell.  A new queen has emerged from this cell within the past week.  Worker bees are in the process of demolishing the cell.  A new queen cell can be seen to the left of the emerged cell.  A worker in inside the cell tending to the queen larva.

Last week I found that the bees had built more queen cells and I decided to let them replace the old queen.

I have been concerned that it is too early in the spring for mature drones to be available for mating.

Left:  The new queen.  Can you find her?  I expected to find a virgin queen since it usually takes two weeks for a queen to mate and start to lay eggs.  I found new eggs everywhere in the hive.  I beleive she is laying

Sure enough, upon inspection, I found that one of the queen cells had emerged. The empty cell was in the process of being destroyed by the workers. I estimate that the new queen emerged a few days earlier.

I searched to find the virgin queen. Sure enough I found her, but I also found eggs…. Lots and lots of eggs. I guess she is not a virgin any more.

Right:  Enlarged area of photo above showing closeup of the new queen.  I am concerned that she is small.  Queen ususally enlongate after mating.  I will check her in a week to see how she is doing.

Could this queen have mated and started laying in less than a week? My experience has been that a queen will take up to two weeks after emergence to mate and start to lay. This queen seems to have done it in less than a week.

I am concerned that she seems a little on the small side. If the bees are happy with her I will let her stay until a better queen is available later this spring.

I am now kicking myself for destroying the beautiful large queen cell that was built at the beginning of the month. Sometimes I need to just let the bees be bees. They know their business better than I do.

Left:  A worker bee bringing pollen into the hive with the new queen.  With new eggs there will be young larva to feed in a few days.

On the other hand however, I have been watching one of my hives dwindle down in size. There is no sign of disease. The queen was very successful last season and the hive was strong all winter. Now they will not survive another week. Why… I don’t know.

The question for a beekeeper always is, When to I let nature take its course, and when do I intervene.

 

If I knew then what I know now

This blog post will be an examination of my queen rearing attempts over the past three years with conclusions regarding correct and or incorrect processes.

My queen rearing project began out of a desire to see my bees survive the damp cape cod winters. I had been experiencing a 50% to 80% loss of colonies from year to year.

Left:  Example of bee larva of various ages.

I along with many beekeepers have noticed that over the past 30 years it has been harder and harder to keep bees. I have seen winter hive looses, not to mention summer hive losses, increase year after year.

I remember when I was 17 years old with my first hive of bees. They were Starline hybrid bees, and I knew next to nothing about keeping them. The hive survived for years on its own. Now that would seldom if ever happen. A hive that is not carefully kept and attended to will probably die the first season. Trachea, and Verroa mites along with the small hive beetle, as well new bee viruses, not to mention colony collapse disorder have devastated the bee population.

Right:  Queen Pupa of the development age from different size queen cells.  These queens were grafted on the same day.  Their developmental variation is probably due to the age of the larva at the time they were grafted.

In breeding and mass production of queens have weakened the genetic quality of our bees. Queens that would once last four or five years need to be replaced every two.

 Left:  A steady hand is needed to transfer the fragile larva from the comb into the artifical cell

 So what have I done about it? Well three years ago I started learning how to raise queens of my own. With both success and failure.

2007 (year 1). I experimented with two methods of queen rearing. The miller method, and the Doolittle method. I quickly became apparent to me that the Doolittle method allowed me much more control over the queen rearing process.

Right:  Larva after being grafted.  These larva should be only three days old.  Their various ages can bee seen by the degree of curviture of the larva.  Three day old larve look like a comma.  Some of these grafts appear to be 4 or 5 days old.  This would result in poor quality queens.

Positive

I learned how to graft (I was dry grafting at the time) larva into artificial cells.

I learned how to create a cell starter colony

I learned how to create a cell builder colony

I learned how to create queen mating nucs.

I was able to have 10% of my grafts accepted by the cell builder colony (9 out of 90 grafts)

Good size queen cells were created by the cell builder colony

I had 8 queens emerge

Queens were of adequate size.

I had 3 queens mate and start laying

 

Left:  Two days after grafting and being placed in a cell builder, you can see the larva floating in a pool of royal jelly.  You can also see how the nurse bees have started to add wax to the plastic cell as they start creating the queen cell.

Negative

Only 10% of my grafts were accepted

No queens survived into 2008

2008 (year2). I continued to experiment with the Doolittle method of queen rearing. I started to learn more about bee genetics and the importance of the Drone (male). I took a queen rearing class and discovered that if the artificial cells were primed with royal jelly, or even plain yogurt, better grafting results could be obtained.

Left:  My first queen cells from 2007.  You can see how large they are.  This is due to the proper age larve being grafted into the cell, and the fact that only 8 cells were accepted and fed by the nurse bees.  The cell builder colony was not over whelmed by the number of queen cells.

Positive

I raised queens three times that spring.

Wet grafting of larvae improved my acceptance rate to 90%

Grafting 90 cells yielded 80 queen cells.

I raised 15 mated queens that season.

Negative

Queen cell size was very small. This was partly due to my over whelming my cell builder hives with too many queen cells. I believe that I also grafted larva that was 4 or 5 days old not 3 as I should have. This resulted in smaller cells and smaller queens.

I had a problem creating nucs. I was not as organized as I should have been. I attempted to make splits from nearby colonies. 50% of the nucs created returned home to the mother hives abandoning the queen cells and brood placed in the nuc. The previous year I had used relocated bees to create the nucs. That method worked much better.

Right:  Queen cells from 2008.  You can see how small the cells are.  This was probably due to the number of grafts placed in the cell builder and the age of the grafted larva being too old.

I had problems with small hive beetle larva infesting two of the nucs creating a situation where the bees abandoned the nuc. This was probably due to the low numbers of bees remaining in the nucs thus creating stress within the nuc colony.

Queen quality was poor due to the small cell size. I did not attempt to over winter any of the queens.

2009 (year 3). I continued with the Doolittle method of queen rearing. It was an extremely cold wet spring. The colonies would not buildup and missed the main honey flow (May, June, and July). All the colonies were starving in August, a time where there should have been 60 pounds of surplus honey on each hive. Since there was no promise of honey that season two of the colonies were used for queen rearing.

Left:  Grafts from 2009.  Better cell size, but still too small.

Positive

I continued having great success with grafting and acceptance of the grafts. This improved to a 95% acceptance rate.

I learned how to create and use, with success, a queen right cell builder colony.

Grafted three cycles of queen cells over a two month period.

Raised 25 queens.

Learned how to bank queens.

One queen was overwintered and has survived.

 

Right:  More small queen cells

Negative:

Queen cells were small again. It became apparent that I was grafting larva that was too old. During one cycle, queens emerged two days before the expected age of 16 days old destroying 19 queen cells.

I had the same problems with creating mating nucs. Many queens were lost because the workers returned to the mother colonies.

I became allergic to bee stings

2010 (year 4). We will see, won’t we!

A Happy Beekeeping New Year

Well as you can tell, I have not been a consistent blogger in 2008, only one entry. Well I’ll use the excuse that I was too busy keeping my bees! Or should I say… building them.

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Left: A wild swarm of bees we removed from a picknic table at the local conservation area. As you can see, this swarm was very small.

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As you can see from previous entries, I started 2008 with only 3 surviving hives, out of 10 strong wintered over hives from the previous fall. With much effort I built those three hives into 8, while harvesting 60 lbs of honey, and rearing about 20 queens. Some of those queens failed, some are now reining in my hives, and some of the better queens were sold to fellow local beekeepers here on the cape. We had a great time with the bees this year.

Right: A swam of bees we removed from a storage shed at the Otis Air Force Base.

The bees are sure amazing architects!

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Some of our adventures included gathering two wild swarms. One was found in the middle of a local conservation area, attached to the corner of a metal picnic table. The site was right against one of the capes largest ponds in the middle of nowhere. The swarm was probably two miles from the nearest beehive. I think the swarm was from a wild hive.

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Left: A close up of the swarm, now acutaly an established colony. Where is the queen? We did find her (by luck) and put her into the new hive. Click on the photo for an enlarged view

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The other swarm was gathered from a storage shed at the Otis Air Force Station, right next to the airstrip. The swarm had established itself inside the storage shed, accessing their new home through rusted holes in the siding. Comb had been built attached to various packs and boxes which contained who knows what. We spent a good part of a day removing items to access the bees. They had built beautiful curved comb attached to the metal siding of the shed, and everything else. In a way, it was a shame to remove them. It took us a while to cut out the comb and attached bees and install them into a hive. What a challenge. Bees were flying and honey was dripping everywhere. We neglected to bring a bucket to put the extra honeycomb in, so we used an empty rifle locker. Bees were stuck to everything!

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Right: My first attempt a queen rearing this spring. See how small the cells are. I destroyed all these cells and started over. These cells were dry grafted. On my next attempt I primed the cups and got a 85% acceptance rate.
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The biggest challenge I had this year was keeping the bees in the mating nucs. I had about a 60 percent success rate with keeping the bees in a nuc. Some would abscond, or return to the parent colony, or migrate to a neighboring nuc. I had two nice queens, and established colonies abscond due to small hive beetle infestation. As we discussed at the bee association, this pest is increasingly becoming a problem. I believe my beetle problem came with the packages of bees I received from Georgia two years ago. They have increased unchecked for two years, and I saw many of them in my hives.

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Left: Removed queen pupa. These queens are all the same age. You can see how the cell size effects the development of the queen. Larger queen cells mean larger queens. Larger queens mean more overies and better laying.

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I was just thinking today that the 2009 beekeeping season has already started. The work we do in preparing the hives for winter will have a great effect on the condition of the bees this spring. This year some of the hives have been wrapped in black building paper. It is my understanding that the wrapped hives will be about 5 degrees warmer than the unwapped hives. We will see how this works out.

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Right: This is what it is all about.... The beekeepers reward.... Honey right from the extractor. We harvested 60 lbs this year.

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My new years resolution is to maintain this blog. If you read this, post a message. Let me know what you think.

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Right: My friend, and fellow beekeeper, Gene and I on extraction day!

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And have a happy new year!