Thursday, June 23, 2011

Split hives, mating nucs and queen cells (100th post!)

I have been avoiding this post because I wanted to make it 'special' since it is my 100th post. That's right, this is my 100th post. What I have written about in the past 99 posts, I am not sure. I hope that the few people who stumble onto my blog enjoy what I have been up to over the last couple of weeks.

I am attempting to increase my hive numbers to be 5 hives total. I am also trying to replace some queens in my remaining hives. I am trying to do this the cheapest way possible as well. I understand the benefits of just buying a queen and doing splits and putting the mated queen in a candy cage and being done with it. This year I am interested in making my own queens. The hive at my farm is fairly mediocre. They seem to be aggressive and the queen is failing. So that hive was split up into (2) 4 frame splits; and (2) 7 frame nucs. I also made (4) mating nucs which required a cup of bees in each.
How many hives do you see?
This is a mating nuc; which is made out of injected polystyrene. It has a built in hive feeder and an entrance disc to open and close.
My one successful mating nuc
I purchased 9 queen cells from Ferguson Apiaries in Hensall, Ontario. They are within a reasonable driving distance from where I work and live. The cells are capped queens which are ready to emerge in a day or two. The cells need to be stored in a warm thermos. This was achieved by placing warm water bottles in wood shavings and just dropping the cells into the shavings. Bill Ferguson claims that queen cells have an 80% success rate; I am not sure if that means that only 80% of the cells will emerge or if 80% will be accepted, etc. That may be a question for the next time I see him.
Queen cell pushed into foundation
How do you use a queen cell? Well, you push it into the foundation on a frame that is centered in the hive. Make sure you do not damage the cell when handling and that you do not obstruct the queens exit.
Queen cell hatched and removed
The bees add wax to secure it to the foundation. I am fairly happy with how easy they were to use.
Brood with chalkbrood! Did I expose the frame too long?
The hive which was at my other site had tons of swarm cells in it. The hive was also brimming over with bees. So I split it and put the 'old queen' in the new location. I saw some swarm cells which a queen had emerged from, so I placed another queen cell into that hive in the hopes of getting the genetics I wanted. The next week I could see that the old queen at the new location is still laying eggs. One thing that scared me was that there is a fair amount of chalkbrood in the hive. This may be due to the fewer bees in the hive. I will continue to monitor the situation. I gave the new location a lot of capped brood so that their population will catch up to the original home.
New eggs
It is difficult to see the eggs, but they are there. They look like little grains of rice. The queen hasn't laid in all the cells in this particular picture.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Canada Post killing your buzz?

It appears as though the Canada Post is the latest thorn in the side of beekeepers. Everyone knows the importance of the handling of queen bees. If you read through the article you will hear how many beekeepers and bee suppliers are in a bit of a pickle for not being able to ship reliably. If the package gets stuck in the mail, the queen will perhaps perish, which would not be good for business obviously!


I was at Fergusons' apiary this week to pick up queen cells; I am working on the post for this adventure.  They are out of the way for me but I am satisfied with their stock. They have Buckfast honey bees. The most important thing is that the bees are quite hearty and very gentle. Having constantly angry bees is discouraging. Actually, I would say that I would not keep bees if they were always aggressive.

Take a look at the Toronto Star article and draw your own conclusions. The woman in the picture was part of the University of Guelph Tech transfer (bee crew).

TheStar: Canada Post Strike putting honey crops at risk?