Queen Rearing
Jenter Queen Rearing
Apiary Update
Meon Valley Auction
Varroa Treatments
Nosema, and other things
Beekeeping Axioms
Beating the bees to it!
Bee Brains
Recipe

Queen Rearing at St. John's

Join us Rearing Queens. 25th May to 7th June inclusive

Inspired by Bill Dartnall's visit to The Bothy to describe his system of queen rearing using the Jenter cage and a single colony, it is our intention to put his system into action. But, whilst it was Bill's aim to produce early queens we feel that, to give ourselves a fighting chance in our first season, we would delay our start until the end of May.

This is your chance to join in some community queen rearing with the aim of producing a quantity of queen cells for distribution amongst the participants who, by investing in a small mating mini-nucleus hive, will be able to take one of the cells and process it onwards to produce a young and vibrant laying queen.

How many will we be able to produce? Well, our initial aim will be to produce a maximum of 20 but we may be encouraged by our success and the demand to continue beyond the above dates. Who knows?

We have laid out a programme detailing the activities during the above period and timed them so that the major activities will, where possible, occur "out of office hours". So it is that our first activity at the apiary is scheduled for Bank Holiday Monday 25th May, when the system will be explained and will be put into action. Thereafter, the system will continue as scheduled with the cells (hopefully) being available for collection on Sunday 7th June.

So why not make a date to join us in the venture, who knows where it may lead? At the very least it will be an interesting, enjoyable experience that should lead to our colonies being led by younger queens with quieter temperaments, thereby making our beekeeping even more enjoyable.

N.P.H. Feb '98

Mating Hives

If you wish to buy one of the Apidea or Warnholz mating hives, please ask me by Thursday 28th May at the latest. I have an Apidea if you wish to see one, I don't have but can describe the Warnholz as essentially a tiny top-bar hive made of polystyrene. The margin on these is small, so I cannot offer much discount. At present I anticipate pre-ordered prices of UKP 15.75 and UKP 9.50 respectively. I may also require a contribution towards the postage.

You could choose to make a mating hive (quartering a super to form four is a popular method).

You could simply replace your old queen with the new cell -- not the best method, but it often works ok. You'll lose a week or three's egg laying time using this method and have more work to do looking for emergency cells and/or a tear-down of your new cell. If demand exceeds supply, people with proper mating arrangements may get preference.

Gordon

Jenter Queen Rearing
Using a Single Colony

Schedule for the 1998 queen rearing project

Equipment

• A Jenter cage set into a brood frame.
• A Brood frame fitted with Caps and Fixtures complete with hair-roller cages.
• A Floor-without-a-floor (FWAF) complete with two entrance blocks, A and B.
• A Spare brood box and matching frames of drawn comb.
• A Spare empty super or `eke'.
• A Contact feeder and light syrup.
• A mating mini-nucleus (or equivalent) for each queen, and some fondant for the bees to feed on whilst the queen mates.

Bank Holiday Monday, 25th May

• Find the queen and place her on the Jenter frame, free to run.
• Transfer the remaining frames from the original brood box (BB1) into the spare brood box (BB2).
• Place the Jenter frame, with the queen, into the centre of BB1.
• Place a frame heavy with honey and pollen either side of the Jenter frame.
• Fit BB1 with a reduced entrance block and turn it to face the opposite direction.
• Fit a queen excluder to BB1 and place the FWAF on top, without its insert and with it's reduced entrance block facing in the original direction and opposite to the entrance in BB1.
• Place BB2 on top of BB1.
• Restore BB2 to its normal capacity by filling the empty spaces with frames of drawn comb or foundation.
• Add the feeder, feed and close up.

Tuesday 26th May: Rest day.

Wednesday 27th May

• At 19:00/7pm, open the hive to the lower box, find the queen and confine her in the Jenter cage.
• Feed and close up the hive.

Thursday 28th May

• At 07:00/7am, open the hive, check the queen has laid and release her to run free.
• Feed and close up the hive.

Friday 29th May: Rest day.

Saturday 30th May

• At 12:00/noon, place the insert into the FWAF and replace entrance block B with entrance block A. Note that the upper box (BB2) is now queenless.
• Examine BB2 and remove any queen cells and larvae they may have have built
• Feed and close up the hive.

Sunday 31st May

• At 12:00/noon or later, open the hive and remove the Jenter frame.
• Transfer Jenter cells into the cell raiser frame and place the frame into the centre on BB2.
• Feed and close up the hive.

Monday 1st June

• At 12:00/noon or later, remove the FWAF to restore full contact between the brood boxes.

Tuesday 2nd to Saturday 6th June: Rest days.

Sunday 7th June

• At around 16:00/4pm, transfer the capped cells to mating nucleus.
• Transfer the nucleus to its mating site, supplying a good cupfull of young bees to maintain the queen until she's mated and laying.

Note: If necessary, the cells can remain in situ for a maximum of a further 7 days

Getting those young bees

• At the colony where you plan to collect them, ideally first find the queen (for safety). If you don't first find the queen check very carefully at each stage to ensure that you're not putting her in the mating nucleus.
• Take a frame from the brood area and shake it lightly above the brood box to dislodge the older bees, which hold on less strongly.
• Holding the frame above a suitable container, give it a good firm shake to dislodge a good quantity of young bees.
• You may need to repeat this with another frame to ensure you have plenty of bees.
• You can either pour the bees into the mini-nuc directly from the container, or you can carefully scoop them up with a cup.

Apiary Update

By Dave Purchase, Apiary Manager

I was sorry that I had to miss the AGM through sickness. The disappointment was offset by the news from Norman that a new member, new beekeeper, Tony Burton, had volunteered to assist me with the management of the Association's (ie, your) bees. I have now met Tony and I am sure that we will make a good partnership.

Elsewhere in this issue you will see Norman's report on the Association's queen rearing programme. This is a fascinating new venture for us and I hope that many of you will be able to participate.

I have visited St. John's Copse and Breach Farm as often as possible during the winter. Despite the recent unseasonably warm weather, stores seem to be holding up well. Although the weather has been nice for us, I don't believe that it has been good for the birds and the bees. Early breeding could result in many casualties if there is a prolonged cold spell. Call me old-fashioned, but I like my seasons to be seasonable!

Some of my own hives and two of the Association's are fitted with varroa floor adaptors. I am monitoring the natural mortality of mites on a slightly irregular basis. To date I have found very few indeed - never more than ten, and that over three weeks. I will treat in spring only if there is a marked increase in numbers (I may do a 24 hour Bayvarol test), bearing in mind that time is running out if six weeks' Bayvarol treatment is to be completed before the first supers are added to the hives.

I am a little concerned about one of the two Association colonies at Breach Farm. There are signs of possible Acarine, for which there is no longer an approved treatment. I shall keep a close eye on it.

Soon I hope to move the outwardly healthier of the two Breach Farm colonies to St. John's for transfer to the second of the two new Jumbo hives. I will use the opportunity to move the bees onto new brood comb.

It is always sad to lose bees. Last September I rescued two very weak nucs, each headed by a New Zealand queen. They had been unattended for several weeks, through no fault of the beekeeper. I brought them into my garden where I united them, fed them and treated them for varroa. I placed polystyrene sheets above the crown board for extra insulation (ensuring that top ventilation was maintained). The bees responded well to the tlc, increasing in number, and foraging until the early days of December. They collected a lot of pollen; always a good sign.

Into 1998, and on the milder days of early January foragers were bringing home small pollen loads, almost certainly from hellebores and viburnums. Things were still looking good and hefting of the hive reassured me that the colony was still well-provisioned. Needless to say there was no sign of activity during the colder days of late January and very early February. I was concerned, however, when there was still no sign of activity at the start of the recent warm spell. I lifted the roof to find that all the bees were dead. They had clearly died of starvation through failing to move from a comb which they had emptied of stores onto comb containing both honey and pollen. I estimated that they still had the equivalent of three combs of food. My disappointment was heightened by the discovery of eggs in about a quarter of the cells on one side of a comb - clearly things had been going well.

My conclusion was that there were too few bees (probably not more than two thousand) to maintain an adequate temperature in the cluster during the several days of cold winds and night frosts. Is there anyone out there who can offer any tips on overwintering nucs (I felt that I had done all I could)?

The dates of this year's Apiary Meetings are published elsewhere in this issue. To make it easier on our memories, they are all scheduled for the first Saturday of each month. As an added attraction (I hope!) you are invited back to my house afterwards for light refreshments and a good natter about the afternoon's experiences. Of course all Apiary Meetings are weather permitting. If the weather is marginal, by all means check with me an hour or so before the 2.30 start. My number is 781288.

Infrequent visitors to St. John's Copse will see a big change when they visit again. Most of the first coupe has now been coppiced as part of the overall management plan and hedgelaying has been completed along about fifty metres of the road frontage. Useful by-products are for sale, such as bean poles, thatching spars and fire-wood. Flora and fauna, including our bees, should benefit from the improved habitat.

I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible during the season.

Varroa Treatments

A Clarification of SI 1729

Claire Waring, editor of Bee Craft, wrote to the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) for clarification about the use of various treatment for varroa. Presumably, the reply also applies to similar treatments intended for other purposes.

The VMD were asked specifically about the following:

• Formic acid (60% and 85%)
• Lactic acid
• Oxalic acid
• Thymol
• Other essential oils
• Industrial talc
• Green almond husks
• Frow mixture (Nitrobenzene, petrol, ligroin and safrol)
• Homeopathic treatments
• Oil of Wintergreen
• Liquid paraffin

Colin Penny of the VMD's reply is understandably cautiously worded, but very helpful in overall content, including the following extracts:

"The Residues Regulations would prohibit the administration of these non-medicinal curative substances only where, if transmitted to honey, they would be likely to be harmful to human health. If the product is not harmful, it can be administered. In respect of most of these non-medicinal substances it will be clear whether or not they present a danger to human health."

"..... we are not aware that they have given rise in the past to any human health issues related to the production of honey and there is, therefore, no prima facie reason for us to seek the expert advice I have referred to. We will, however, review the list of substances you have provided and consider whether we should look for residues....."

"I have to say that the ingredients of Frow mixture do cause us concern from a number of angles. We shall look for this substance first....."

A further caution, though. The letter from the VMD presumes that the use of the substances has been widely practiced. I actually doubt that some have been as widely used as the VMD think, so we may still be waiting for evidence. However, for the immediate future at least, the VMD are explicitly allowing the the use of the substances, expecting common sense to apply.

Thanks to both Claire Waring and Colin Penny for a timely and pragmatic correspondence.

Gordon

Nosema, and other things

James C. Bach -- email@omitted.anti.spam

I would like to express a few ideas about how we approach Nosema and other issues regarding our bee colonies. It is often heard among beekeepers that they do not have any problem with Nosema, or Honey Bee Tracheal Mites (HBTM [Honeybee Trachael Mites aka Acarine]), or brood survivability, or even queens. But when they are asked if they had some bees checked in a laboratory for Nosema or HBTM, or if they measured brood survivability or queen quality, they say no. I suggest that without a lab diagnosis or conducting measurements, we cannot tell whether our bees have these maladies, or whether they do not. I base this opinion on the following grounds:

• I have dissected thousands of bees for Nosema. When I put the mid-gut into a petri dish I observe the difference between the color and distension or swelling of the mid-gut between the 25 mid-guts in the dish. I only rarely see a mid-gut that is so swollen that I can't see the rings around it or one that is whitish in color. Yet the samples will have between 4,000 spores (the lower detectable limit) and as high as 3,500,000 spores per bee.
• The four hives that had the 3.5 million spores were sampled in early July on Vashon Island in Puget Sound in western Washington. They were managed in an excellent manner, were five deep boxes high and full of bees. They each produced a 125 lb. crop that year. Was I surprised after all the stories I had heard about Nosema.
• When we were running 250+ samples of bees for HBTM in the lab in 1985 we checked all samples for Nosema. The samples were taken in early June as I recall. The Nosema levels in wet and rainy western WA samples didn't go over 150,000 spores per bee. Only three samples from commercial colonies showed Nosema in dry eastern WA . When I checked the location from which the samples came I found one apiary setting below the surrounding grade level in a gravel pit (very high chalk-brood levels too), another backed up against a southerly exposed granite rock bluff exposed to high temperatures day and night, and the third was in the bottom of a steep canyon which had a stream flowing through it. I suggested that the beekeeper move the apiary out of the gravel pit. He did so and the bees removed the chalk-brood in two days! The observed condition of the colonies - vitality, temperament, brood survival - improved rapidly. Nosema appears to be highest and have the most negative impact on queens and package bees following shipment, and colonies in the spring if one or more other maladies are affecting them.
• I have also cut thousands of thoracic disks of bees and put them in a potassium hydroxide solution to check for HBTM with a microscope. In many of these cases I have removed the trachea from surrounding muscle tissue and looked at it for mites with a 10x hand lens before putting them in the chemical bath. I found that often I didn't see mites with the hand lens but after clearing the muscle tissue for 4-6 hours in the solution I found between one and 10 mites per trachea. My observations suggest that low levels of mites may be missed with a hand lens.
• My experience has been that Nosema was highest in those colonies which appear not to build up rapidly in the spring, though HBTM causes the same symptoms nowadays. But it is also true that reduced brood survivability, poor nutrition, and unattractive queens may all occur at the same time in the hive resulting in a slow building colony in the spring. So now we have to measure several things before we can determine the cause of a symptom(s). See how complicated these issues get?
• Beekeepers often notice spotty brood patterns in their hives. I have checked brood survivability under these conditions and found that only 35 percent of the cells with eggs I had previously identified were dark eyed worker pupae 14 days later. I have checked larval survivability in colonies over a period of time pre and post feeding of Fumidil-B (regrettably without testing for Nosema). I found that pretreatment survivability ranged between 35 and 60 percent. Treatment of the six to eight frame splits in mid May consisted of gorging the bees with four feedings poured over the cluster (rate of one tsp. of Fumidil-B in one gallon of 1:1 syrup); twice one hour apart on a 60F day, and two subsequent gorgings ten days apart. Sufficient syrup was poured between the combs to moisten the bees without letting too much run out the hive entrance. Three weeks post treatment, larval survivability ranged between 85 and 95 percent.
• Beekeepers say their colonies look excellent following the use of unlabeled miticides. They don't know what the mite levels were before they treated. When the right questions are asked, it is often found that they lost a lot of colonies the previous fall even after treating (using Apistan) because they let the mite levels get too high. The remaining colonies contained young bees with low levels of mites. The next spring they use an unapproved chemical, and report the bees looked fine all year. Of course they would, because of very low mite levels in the spring (perhaps entirely unaffected by the miticide). Talk with them in the fall or the following spring and they report 30 to 40 percent losses. They will claim the miticide worked because that is what is being commonly reported, and they look around for some other thing upon which to blame the losses. You'd be surprised at the stories I've heard.
• Grease patties - TM [Terramycin] or plain, powdered or granulated sugar. Many beekeepers assume that bees eat the patty. Others think that bees only remove the patty from the hive in response to hygienic behavior cues and in so doing they get some TM on their mouth parts which happens to get to larvae during feeding activities. To my knowledge neither of these have been proven by research. (But then there is so much research published that I can't possibly keep up with it all, and I don't have a formal research library at my disposal.) I do know a beekeeper who fed large amounts of cheap powdered sugar to a bee colony for winter stores instead of syrup or honey. The colony died in short order because powdered sugar contains cornstarch. Powdered sugar holds a patty together better than granulated sugar during comb manipulations.

You simply cannot evaluate a colony's health by looking at the bees, though you may be able to make some observations about the colony's condition. That is why scientists insist that research colonies be essentially equal in all respects, that treated and control colonies be used, and accurate measurements be taken, before any deductions may be made about the success or failure of a treatment. But I will suggest further, that there are a significant number of things going on in the colony, like larval survivability, queen attractiveness, etc. that are also influencing the outcome of the treatments we apply.

We attribute human behavior to honey bees, dogs, cats, and other animals. This is the source of many errant conclusions about what bees are doing and how they respond to what we are doing to them.

It is also very important for beekeepers to check out the technical references available to them in their search for information about diseases and mites. Much has been published on the subject since 1983. Where we have problems is in determining appropriate bee and hive management techniques for various conditions. Here it is easy to get at least 11 answers from ten beekeepers on any question that is asked. Some answers are technically accurate but many are anecdotal observations or repetition of answers that have been passed around for several years and which are now much different than the original answer.

Does this help you look and think differently about your observations, perceptions, and experience? Then I have obtained my goal in writing this.

James C. Bach. WSDA State Apiarist, Yakima WA

Allen Dick -- email@omitted.anti.spam

Excellent post, all round. I hope we get some comments on these points.

I hadn't planned to use much Fumidil this spring, but I am now reconsidering. I guess I have always known that -- if the touts are correct -- Fumidil could increase my bottom line by as much as double and reduce my workload in the process. However I have always remained unconvinced.

I've used Fumidil a few times and seen no visible difference. I guess I expected to see a huge difference in cluster size or demeanor of the bees and to have trouble lifting supers onto the truck in years where I have used Fumigillan, but I have always been disappointed. But, as I always have said, if there were a 10% or even 20% (maybe more) increase in performance, it would not be obvious without methods of accurate measurement and comparison. Of course it is a lot of trouble to do the measurement, and therefore it just does not get done, and we have to go by grosser and more subjective judgement.

Your mention of drenching of bees with Fumidil treated syrup interests me greatly. I have heard of this being practised by several of my neighbours, but haven't done it, because it is contrary to the recommendations, and I have had no real way of knowing if it works.

So, I would be very interested to know if there are any studies evaluating this treatment method. I know others put Fumigillan into patties and dust it with sugar like oxytet, but I have remained a sceptic. To me using unapproved and untested methods seems like sacrificing virgins: something to do that is expensive and disrupting, but the results of which on the corn crop are difficult to ascertain. What has discouraged me in using Fumidil according to directions is the high cost and the lack of visible results so a drench method has appeal since so little of the drug is used.

As you point out, results are not necessarily visible, so I haven't known what to think. ..... Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.

Allen

Vince Coppola -- email@omitted.anti.spam

Dr. Furgala told me that he found that 2 gals in the fall and 1 gal in the spring was the minimum required to control nosema. He said that if you cannot afford this treatment not to waste your time and money with a lesser one. He also said that if you get nosema under control, and that may take a few years, and you wished to save a bit of cash, you might skip one year in three of treatments but to be careful in doing so and to keep an eye on spore counts.

Beekeeping Axioms

Tom Barrett

I am ..... minded to say, that beekeeping seems to me, to be based on some axioms just like mathematics. They do not have the certainty of mathematical axioms, but they can largely be depended on. In fact swarm control and other manipulations are based on a knowledge of the effects of these axioms.

• Bees will fly back to their hive or if the hive is not there, will fly to the nearest hive. (Used in moving flying bees from one hive to another)
• Bees moved more than 5 kilometres lose all ability to find their old location and will map to their new surroundings. (Used in Swarm Control, making increase and migratory beekeeping)
• Nurse bees are attracted to unsealed brood. (used in covering a comb with bees and guaranteeing that the queen is not on the comb, even if she cannot be found, also in Demaree Swarm Control)
• An egg in a queen cell will hatch in 3 days, will be sealed on the 9th day, and emerge on the 16th day. (Used in Swarm Control procedures)
• If swarming impulse be in train, the swarm will emerge on the day the first queen cell is sealed. (Used in Swarm Control procedures)
• The queen is fatter than the workers and will not pass through a correctly designed excluder. (Used in controlling where the queen may lay or finding a queen.)
• Queenless bees will attempt to raise a queen from the eggs in worker cells. (Sometimes used in making increase)
• Hive cohesion is maintained by the queen's ability to emit Queen Substance which is available to every bee in the hive. The amount of Queen Substance is directly proportional to the age and health of the queen. The likelihood of swarming or the possibility of laying workers is inversely proportional to the availability of Queen Substance.
• Bees will respect a gap of approx 9mm between two surfaces(used in hive design).
• If bees are placed on an inclined plane, they will walk upwards (used in Shook Swarming and with the Tarranov Board Swarm procedures)

I am sure that there are many more, that experienced beekeepers can come up with.

The number of variables met in beekeeping are indeed legion, but I would prefer to have some list of rules which are largely dependable, rather than work on the basis that because there are so many variables, that little can be depended on.

I suppose that at the end of the day, each beekeeper works with what he or she is most comfortable.

Tom Barrett, Foxrock, Dublin

Beating the bees to it!

Lloyd Spear -- email@omitted.anti.spam

Your instincts are right..... for more than a hundred years one of the swarm prevention methods has been to create artificial swarms. A great number of those methods were developed in the days before extractors when 100% of the honey raised was comb honey.

We have a book in the US The Comb Honey Book, by Richard Taylor, that is the only one I know of that outlines all the various methods of creating artificial swarms. Each is quite complicated, so I won't try to describe them. Thorne in England might carry it or have something similar.

Joel Govostes -- email@omitted.anti.spam

In England there is a very nice beginners' manual entitled Bees at the Bottom of the Garden, published fairly recently, and that includes an excellent artificial swarming procedure, well illustrated and simple. Sorry, but I can't recall the author's name.

ABC & XYZ of BEE CULTURE by Root has an entry about artificial swarming, but it is not so descriptive.

Basically you take the queen and a couple frames of brood (and some food) and put them at the center of a new hive. Any swarm-cells on these combs are removed during the transfer. This new hive goes on the stand of the original colony, and the excluder and original honey supers go on the new brood-chamber.

The original brood chamber is then placed on a clean floor, on a stand to one side, and fed with sugar syrup. They rear a queen and are soon building up on their own. The two units can be run separately from then on, adding supers as required, or, in time they can be re-united into a double-brood hive if increase is not desired.

This plan is pretty straightforward, and can be altered as required. Some advocates recommend moving the original brood chamber after several days so it sits on the opposite side of the orig. stand, diverting more of the foragers to the other hive.

I have never tried this artificial swarming, but would be interested to hear about the results users have had.

A shook swarm is not quite the same idea -- you end up shaking most of the colony onto a small brood chamber of foundation, which requires more of an educated guess, and its success is largely dependent on the weather during the first few weeks afterwards. In my experience, anyway.

Aaron Morris -- email@omitted.anti.spam

My personal speculation on the issue of genetic selection for swarming propensity is that it is a red herring! Swarming is the natural way that the biological unit (a colony of bees) reproduces. Genetic selection requires reproduction; genetic selection for nonreproductive units seems an oxymoron. I'm not saying that one group or strain of bee may or may not be more inclined to swarm than another, but ALL healthy bees at some point in their existence will be inclined to swarm. BEES SWARM, period.

What makes any of the systems superior to just lettin' 'em swarm or cut out swarm cells and give 'em more room, is that the systems mimic a natural swarm while keeping the population either intact or at least in the same apiary as opposed to the woods or your neighbors walls. The systems work with your bees, acknowledging their natural desire to reproduce and lets bees be bees on the beekeepers schedule!

Aaron Morris - I love it when things work as designed!

Snelgrove swarm control

This question is too timely for me to be a coincidence. I just finished reading last night, Swarming: It's Control and Prevention by L.E. Snelgrove. Written in the 1930s (1934?) the book speculates on the causes of swarming (the intro of the 1995 reprint points the reader to more current work by Winston) and discusses methodologies of the day to deal with swarming.

Snelgrove designed a piece of equipment called a Snelgrove Board (the coincidences never cease!). A Snelgrove Board (SgB) is a piece of equipment very much like an inner cover with a few "extras". Rather than a hole in the center of an inner cover, the SgB has a much larger opening that is double screened, hence a SgB is sometimes referred to as a double screen board. Additionally, a SgB has entrances on three sides of the board on both top and bottom (six in total). The side with no entrances is the front of the board. For later discussion imaging that the top entrances are numbered 1, 3 and 5 for the right, back and left entrances and the bottom entrances are numbered 2, 4 and 6 for the right, back and left respectively. Towards the beginning of swarming season a SgB is used in combination with a queen excluder and hive manipulations on a double brood chamber colony to simulate a swarm while keeping both the parent population and swarming population combined at the same location!

How is this possible?

The hive manipulations consist of segregating the brood frames so those with eggs, larvae and brood are moved to the top hive body and empty frames are segregated to the lower body. This is another technique that hinges on finding the queen. When she is found she is moved to the lower brood chamber on a frame of eggs, larvae and unsealed brood. This should be the only frame in the lower brood chamber with any stages of brood - all other frames in the lower brood chamber should be empty or contain only stores (pollen, nectar and honey). Above the bottom brood chamber go a queen excluder, super(s), and the top brood chamber containing occupied brood frames. Three days later the super(s) will be occupied and the nurse bees will have passed through the queen excluder to the brood frames in the top chamber. At this point in time the SgB is inserted with entrance 1 open - all other entrances on the SgB are closed. For the next few days, field bees from the top brood chamber will exit through entrance 1 and join the population below the SgB by using the original front entrance. One week after the initial manipulation the beekeeper closes entrance 1 and opens entrances 2 and 5. Thus, the bees from the top brood chamber that "graduated" to field bees return to and reinforce the lower population by using entrance 2.

During the next week the top brood chamber bees that become field bees will get accustomed to using entrance 5. While the bees in the lower chamber use either the original front entrance or entrance 2. At the end of the second week the beekeeper closes entrances 2 and 5 and opens entrances 3 and 6. Again the top brood chamber field bees reinforce the lower population by returning to the left hand lower entrance (entrance 6) and the top back entrance (entrance 3) becomes the top brood chamber's main entrance. By using the entrances in the SgB in a round- robin fashion, the top brood chamber becomes a "bee generator" for the lower colony. The top brood chamber, being queenless and initially containing all the eggs, larvae and brood will immediately commence to raise a new queen. However, the top brood chamber will not swarm because the population never reaches sufficient numbers to cast a swarm. The bottom chamber never swarms because the brood rearing cycle was interrupted by the initial manipulations.

This method artificially casts a swarm from a colony, keeps both populations in a single unit, effectively sets up a two queen colony, and leaves a requeened colony at the end of the season when the upper and lower chambers are reunited. I can't wait 'till next year to give it a try. I already have the SgB, which I have always used as double screened boards to make splits, but I have never used them as intended. Live and learn. I'm sorry if the technique looses in the translation, but it is not my intent to rewrite Snelgrove's book. For full details and clarification, read the book. I found it fascinating in spite of its years!

Aaron Morris - I think, therefore I bee!

Swarm cells: For many years I have kept colonies from swarming by making supercedure cells out of swarm cells. One day back in 1965 or so it occurred to me that bee behavior suggested that this was a technique worth trying. To my knowledge it has prevented swarming every time.

For beginners, swarm cells are usually located along the bottom bars of the frames of a second or third brood nest, along the edge of combs that do not touch the frame end bars, or along the edges of pass through holes in the face of the comb. Supercedure cells are usually in the upper half of a comb, towards the center of the frame, and built into the comb face.

The old queen must not have stopped laying! Once the queen has quit laying only drastic measures seem to be successful. The technique may be used even if several queen cells are old enough to be slightly darker at the tip than the body of the cell. These cells may contain live queens. Usually there are a range of age in swarm cells in a hive. Cells may range from half built open cells four days old, to cells with a darkening tip from which a queen will shortly emerge (16 days).

Colonies build swarm cells for several reasons some of which are not very obvious. Usually, crowded conditions are associated with swarming. Unless the crowded conditions are alleviated, swarming can't be prevented just postponed. Crowding can be alleviated by moving emerging brood and honey into another brood nest on top of the bottom two deeps (or a western on top of three westerns). Frames with foundation or empty combs are placed among the combs with eggs and open brood so the queen has several open combs in which to lay. If these steps are taken just as swarm cells are being started and even when they have larvae in them, just remove the cells. Usually this stops the swarming behavior.

If the cells are older as described above I suggest the following technique. If the queen is still laying, alleviate the crowded conditions in the brood nest. Remove the uncapped swarm cells and the older capped cells. Save two to four large, young capped cells. With a hive tool or pocket knife create two to four openings in the upper third of the face of two combs four inches in from the end bars. Do not cut through the mid-rib of the comb. Using a sharp pocket knife carefully remove two to four large, young capped swarm cells from the bottom of the frame. Be careful to not crush the cells. If the cells are attached to the bottom bar carefully cut away some of the bottom bar. Then remove the cell from the comb by cutting deep enough to get the base of the cell which contains the royal jelly. Transfer the cells into the openings made in the comb face and carefully push the surrounding wax over the cell base to hold it in the opening.

Every time I have used this technique the bees have torn down the supercedure cells, repaired the comb, and the old queen keeps laying without the colony swarming. If the bees know the queen is failing they will raise new queens from the cells. Sometimes I do think we can fool the bees, or more properly, take advantage of their normal behaviors.

James C. Bach. WSDA State Apiarist. Yakima WA

Bee Brains

Stan Saddler

An amalgam of two letters -- Editor

..... Of course it is unlikely anyone knows what if any thought processes occur in the bee, probably all instinct.

I beg to differ. A great deal more is known about the thought processes in bees than in many other animals. Because they are so easy to keep and will fly to food sources and back home they have been the subject of many experiments involving learning and discrimination. For example how long does it take to train bees to certain colours, or what shapes can they discriminate most easily, and so on. Remarkably, bees can be taught to navigate a maze in only 6 times the length of time that it takes to teach a rat (on average).

Among the multitude of things that constantly amaze me about our little friends, I think the MOST AMAZING is the fact that their tiny little brain can store all the instinctual information needed to perform ALL the different tasks that workers do as they age, all the information needed to process the input from their many sensory organs, and still has room for this fairly high level of learning.

Note that the neurons are much smaller in the bee brain than in mammal brains. We sometimes tend to think of evolution having proceeded in humans in the direction of bigger brains. Evolution in computer and chip technology has been in increasing miniaturization. The bee brain is an amazingly highly evolved neural net. A bee can learn a maze in only 6 times longer than a rat. The rat has 150 times as many neurons. This beekeeper keeps losing his hive tool.

If you look at the threshold detection concentration of about 30 different compounds (I'm talking smell here; I also can't remember where I saw the study -- neuron death I guess) you find that bees are better than humans in some, and worse in others. Overall one might say that the sense of smell in humans and bees is roughly equivalent. But we have about 40 million olfactory detectors in a great big schnoz and the bee has one thousandth the number of detectors on two antennae the size of two big nose hairs! By the way, drones have a better sense of smell than workers.

If you think about the brain as a kind of computer then instincts must be like little programs that run from a particular set of cues. Since the bee goes through a lot of different tasks in her lifetime these programs must be "written" extremely efficiently in her tiny brain. My first computer was a timex-sinclair. It had 2k of RAM, but I had an extra ram-pack that boosted it 16k I think. I had a chess program for it, and I think it played almost as good a game as some programs that run on machines now with 1000 times the RAM. (But it was slow, and it had to turn the monitor off so it could "think" :-)

The bee gets around having a slow "central processing unit" by routing a lot of input from senses right to reflexes. Notice how a bee that lost her head keeps walking around, or how a sting keeps working. The reflex response time in some bee reflexes is much faster than ours.

Have a neurally stimulating day; Stan

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