Requeening

We had a great talk from Keith Tignor at the monthly ERBA meeting last night. He touched on the fact that there have been very high losses in Virginia this past Winter. The primary reason, based on his findings, was the fact that the bees simply stopped raising brood in the Fall. If this is true, it would definitely be the reason for big losses. I do not recall seeing this and my notes indicate otherwise. But, it would appear that many places suffered a really tough Fall where flowers simply were not producing the pollen and/or nectar that is necessary to maintain brood production in a full hive. I’m not sure if this really was the cause, but it is clearly part of the puzzle. I have only gone through about a third of my hives this month, so I really do not know my casualty count yet, but it doesn’t appear that I have experienced terrible losses. But, I do know of many folks that have.

Another point that Keith made focused on requeening in the Fall. The theory goes that a hive simply has a much higher survival rate if they go into Fall with a brand new queen. I believe that this is likely to be true, in the short term. It only makes sense that a hive with a new queen has a better chance in the immediate future. Whether you requeen ever month, every 3 months, once a year or every other year, the period that follows is likely to be better for your hive. You end up with a queen that is producing fresh pheromones and is likely to be raring to go.

But, I still question this general philosophy and can’t help but wonder if it is not another one of the ‘old practices’ that is hampering today’s beekeepers. By removing your queen just as she approaches 1 year, you are never judging a queen for her longevity. Twenty years go, queens might go 7 years in a hive. Today, you’re lucky if they have enough staying power to last 3. But, I am absolutely certain that some of the queens that are being killed (for requeening) would have made it 4 years. But, those beekeepers will never know, since they kill them before they can prove themselves. It is true that you have to attribute a queen’s longevity to how ‘well’ she was mated. So, one might say that ‘longevity’ has nothing to do with genetics, but is simply based on luck (did she have a good period to mate in, with lots of drones available.) As always, I suggest that there may be another way to look at it.

It is possible that genetics do play a role in how well a queen is mated. One way that Mother Nature may be helping the bees to becoming stronger and better adapted to today’s environment would be queens that have a longer period for when they go out to mate, thus increasing the chances that they are ‘better’ mated then their predecessors. Perhaps they fly longer on a given day or are able to mate more times. There are countless theories that I could provide in this area.

Suffice it to say that I do not requeen in the traditional sense of the word, nor do I believe that it is the right strategy for a sustainable program. I do remove old queens from hives (and let them raise their own), but I never kill them. I will create a Nuc with them and see how they do. Some go on to start a whole new, full-sized hive. Others just become breeder queens. When I have a queen that is coming into her third (and in a very few cases, fourth) year, I’m excited. This is good stuff. The last thing that I want to do is pinch her…

Let ‘Em Do Their Thing

I once read where Michael Bush, a big time beekeeper up North, said that he never replaced the queen from a swarm. He didn’t want bees that couldn’t figure out when it was time to supersede their queen and needed him to help them along. I have a ton of respect for Michael Bush and agree with him for sure, but I am not 100% sure that I will never requeen (the Albo hive comes to mind.)

Two queen cells — Am I Going to Get A Siamese Twin?

At any rate, I went into my only hive that came through the Winter with an issue yesterday (the one with a baseball sized brood nest, apparently a failing queen) to see what they were up to. There were definitely very few bees and only a handful of capped brood (I did not see eggs or larvae or queen). Amazingly enough, they had a pair of queen cells, side-by-side! It seemed like the old gal must have had enough left in her to push out two decent eggs and move along.

My paranoid nature has me wondering if these eggs were any good or not. I absolutely believe that the bees will choose a better egg then I would and they will make the most of any situation, but I have to wonder if the failing queen’s best is really any good or not. The hive was in ok shape, with several frames of honey and a fair amount of pollen (they really haven’t had much brood to feed). There may have been 40 capped worker cells, spread all over the place, and an equal number of drone cells. The bottom line is that this hive’s last hope rests in these queen cells. I was hyper vigilant to put them back in the hive carefully so as not to damage them.

As of right now, I only know that I had a pair of capped cells on March 20. If I assume the worst case scenario, those queens might not emerge until March 29. I will probably have to wait until April 1 to check and see. The key is that I absolutely must be ready with either a frame of eggs (from one of my Nucs with proven queens) or another swarm cell or two. Otherwise, this hive could be in real trouble. I may go down this weekend to check on them and simply give them a frame of eggs anyway, just in case. I hate to risk jostling those queen cells, but it’s probably the best course of action. That way, if those queen cells are no good, these bees can go to work on March 26 (with the new eggs) and possibly have a mated queen by the middle of April.

Only time will tell…

Two Queens Released and Rob Out!

Things seemed to be turning positive with our first (and only) rainfall for June coming last night and providing a whopping 7 tenths of an inch in eastern Henrico! I have no idea if it was just coincidence or not, but all of the hives were incredibly gentle this morning and seemingly glad to leave the desert conditions.

I have a bunch of things going on in the apiary, but there were two critical tasks that needed to be accomplished today. On Saturday, I released two new queens into two new hives! I have never ‘released‘ a queen into a hive before. All of my hives have raised their own queens (I had no marked queens in my bee yard, up until this point.) I was a bit nervous, but I was resigned to the real possibility that both would fail. It would be a learning experience and I would move on from there.

So, I started with the Bob hive. A bee had seemingly flown up out of the hive and fed the queen before I even put the cage into the hive. I was somewhat hopeful here. I opened up the hive and quickly (but calmly) pulled the frame with the attached queen cage. Again, the bees had completely covered the wire that covered the side open to the air. I had been somewhat concerned with the heat that the queen would die if they didn’t give her water, but I could see her walking about, directly on the wire, opposite to the bees. Clearly, they were not biting her, or you’d think she would be at the other side of the cage. So, I pulled the plug (opposite the candy end, as they had not done a bit of damage to the candy) and held the cage to the top of a frame for her to walk out. Two minutes later, and I became a bit concerned that my new queen was a bit mentally challenged. She clamored about, but never exited the cage.

Upon closer inspection, I could see a staple holing the wire caging onto the wooden container, so I used my pliers and pulled it out, pulling out the wiring. She was now open to the air. I held the open in next to a frame and down she went, into the hive! Of course, I had pictures in my mind of a bunch of bees jumping her, so I put the caging aside and began to look for her. I also wanted to destroy any queen cells. I found her in shortly thereafter (actually, it took a bit as she must have shot over to another frame real quickly.) Bees were all about her, feeding her and then I actually saw her seemingly lay an egg! I lost the cell in the masses, but I am about 90% sure she put an egg in there. Regardless, things looked good. I removed the rest of the frames and ended up finding 3 queen cells, all of which I destroyed. I’ll check back again tomorrow, just to be sure that no queen cells exist. You can’t be too careful with this.

As to the Apache Hive, I was a bit more concerned about them, mainly because they seemed to ‘ball’ the cage when I introduced it. But, I found them in the exact same position as before (it clearly was not balling, but feeding) and released her in the same manner as the Bob Hive. As before, things went smoothly and I found her being groomed or fed. But, here is where things went wrong…

To begin with, I forgot to look for queen cells. This is not a big deal, as none can hatch before I check them tomorrow, but it now reduces my ‘queen cell check’ to one inspection, instead of two. More importantly, I did not get the top of the hive down securely, but had no idea of this fact when I left.

When I returned home from work, there were probably 10,000 bees around the Apache Hive. They were literally pouring out of the hive and a small swarm worth of bees were hanging off of the front. No other hives were experiencing this, plus it had one of my newer (and better constructed) robber screens. This couldn’t be robbing! Were my bees leaving? Had someone happened within the hive that made them leave.

Well, I went to open the top and that’s when I realized that the top was not put on securely. Bees were scrambling in through the gaps that I had left! Damn it! For a good 4 hours, masses of bees had been hitting this hive. In retrospect, I made it worse by giving them a whole frame of honey during the initial split. I have been told to never give a new split that much honey (unless you are giving them 10 frames of bees). I basically gave them 4 frames, 1 of which was solid honey and a beacon to the lazy bums of my other hives. It was heartbreaking, as I was really under a lot of pressure from life issues today and these two queen releases were the only bright spots.

Well, there’s nothing for it except to chalk it up for experience. I will always double-check my tops on the smaller hives going forward. I will never give a small hive a full frame of honey in the hot summer (it not only contributes to robbing, but can also create an issue with the Small Hive Beetle, as the bees do not have enough number to adequately protect it.

I can only hope and pray that the queen is ok. I am sure that a very large number of my bees in the Apache Hive perished in fighting the foes. Hopefully, this will not doom them. I will get that frame of honey out of the hive tomorrow, assuming that the mass robbing has stopped. If it hasn’t, I will have to figure out other methods.

Another one for the story books.