The Basingstoke Beekeeper

Autumn 1999

Contents

Apiary Update
AGM
Caveat
Study Centre
Brood Space
Putting Out The Fires
Can't find the Queen?
A Drone Layer
New Comb, New Queen?

Photograph by P-O Gustafsson
Visit his website

Apiary Update

Dave Purchase,
Apiary Manager and Seasonal Bee Inspector

It is six months since my last report but such is the frenzy of the active season that it seems more like six weeks!

Monarchist or anarchist? That is the question to be put to Association colony No. 1 in St. John's Copse. It is the colony used for queen rearing early in the season. It swarmed during the queen rearing process because emergency cells in the bottom box had been overlooked (due to a lack of continuity as no member was able to attend every session). Still, no real harm done as a new queen was duly raised and came into lay.

During the early August apiary meeting there was no young brood and a queen could not be found, neither was there any evidence of a late swarm. A frame of eggs and young larvae was transferred from colony No. 2. A few days later John Cain kindly donated a queen surplus to his requirements. She was introduced as an added insurance to the frame of young brood.

Last Saturday, 4th September, at the apiary meeting the four of us present were surprised (an understatement as far as I was concerned) to find that there was still no brood and no sign of a queen! You will understand now why I posed the opening question. Incidentally, it was good to see Peter and young Tom at the meeting.

Apart from the political assertion, or unless the colony has a death wish, the evidence suggests that the colony is queenright. We could easily have missed her. There was certainly no evidence of the laying workers so typical of a colony which is hopelessly queenless.

On reflection, the most plausible explanation is that the queen was lost, a new queen reared and John's queen rejected. The colony had not been examined between apiary meetings.

I shall reinspect within the next week and if there is still no brood I shall unite the colony with No. 2 which does have a young queen.

All in all, an intriguing sequence of events so typical of beekeeping. It is just as well that we don't pursue an exact science - life would be so boring!

Back to the queen rearing. Although I was unable to be present at the grand finale, I believe that seventeen from a possible twenty queens were reared. It would be interesting to receive feedback on the quality of the queens.

The queen rearing, and the early queenlessness of colony No. 2 (reported in my last Apiary Update), meant that the honey crop from St. John's Copse was less that half a super. The crop from the Breach Farm colony should exceed 35lbs; not good but better than nothing.

You will have gathered that the honey has not yet been extracted. The window of opportunity with rape honey is so small that I have given up trying to meet it since becoming a Bee Inspector. Instead, I find it easier during the relative calm of winter to melt the comb in my warming cabinet.

Finally, a few words of caution. In recent weeks I have seen many more colonies with heavy varroa infestation than at any time during the past four years. One possible explanation is the mild weather last winter with few breaks in brood rearing; just what the mites like. If you have not yet treated, please do so straight away otherwise you might be too late.

Dave Purchase, Apiary Manager.

AGM

Notice is hereby given that the Annual General Meeting of Basingstoke and District Beekeepers' Association will be held at 7:30pm on January 20th 2000 in the Bothy.

Caveat

As Editor I include in this newsletter, articles and texts that I consider interesting, informative, stimulating, provocative and hopefully helpful. However all suggestions, thoughts and advice must of course be considered and judged by you on their own merits.

Remember too that not everyone has the same aims. A well known (though probably apocryphal) sailing story concerns the yacht that followed a Thames Barge until they both ran aground on a sandbank. "Why the H*ll did you run your barge aground?" shouts the yachtsman. "I'm dredging for sand." replies the bargeman "... Why did you do it?".

Gordon

Study Centre

The progress so far.

As I write it's approaching mid-September and this week has been marked by two events.

The first in that we have received formal notification that we have been awarded a grant of £2,722 by the "Millennium Festival Awards for All Committee" bringing the total raised to £11,922. Whilst we can never have too much money, I do feel that we now have sufficient funds to complete the project to the standard we would all wish it to be. Now is the time to concentrate our minds on what we would like to see in the Centre in terms of displays and equipment, and what activities we would envisage. I do urge you to consider these aspects and to come forward with your ideas to make the Centre something special. The opportunity is here and we must make the most of it!

The second is that the path leading to the Centre, together with the patio area, is now complete and is designed to enable wheelchair access. Internally, the building has been insulated and clad with plasterboard and plywood, which is soon to be taped and decorated. The next month should see the fitting out by the carpenter and the electrician, after which the centre will be ready to bring to life with your ideas.

Please, please, let us hear your ideas of what you would like in your Beekeeping Study Centre. N.P.H. Sept '99

Brood Space

One of my colonies has changed in the last three weeks [about June, Ed.]. This is what I have observed, 2 deep bodies for brood chambers then a queen excluder then four short supers for extraction and a very high bee population. Three weeks ago the bees stopped working the top super, this with an abundant flow on (other hives doing great). When I checked again at 1 week later, still no nectar or honey in the top super, so I went down in the hive and found no eggs or brood but still a high bee population. Yesterday (week 3) I again opened this hive and still found no eggs, larvae or queen ... impossible with the high bee numbers, and the bees have filled the lower brood bodies (both of them) with honey. Now I know why they weren't working the top super which they just started on. I put on a shallow super in between the two hive bodies to prepare to move a couple frames of eggs and larvae from another hive to see if they need to raise a queen.

The question is, will the bees move the honey up to give the queen room to lay or will they be honey bound? should I extract the second brood body and give it back to them, reversing to put the empty on the bottom? What is the status of the honey coming from brood frames that have been treated with Apistan over the last 3 years spring and fall? This list information keeps me pumped, so glad I can garner much wisdom and opinions for the reading.

Thanks in advance

Al Boehm, Columbus NC USA

Betcha they swarmed. Several of my big strong colonies that were making honey like crazy got the idea during the rainy spell. When the honey flow resumed after the rain, they didn't resume making honey. Later they go back to it, but at a slower pace, because they don't have nearly as many bees. You likely have a virgin queen running around in the brood chamber, though she could have made her mating flight (and even could have been eaten by a bird or dragonfly on the flight). When I find a hive that has gone up, I routinely give them some brood. It will get them back into productivity sooner at the least, and if anything prevented mating, or the new queen is missing, it gives them another chance at raising a queen before they dwindle too far. (It also helps to keep them from getting mean.)

Yes the bees will give the queen room as needed, as she begins laying. I don't think they move it around so much as to use it up in rearing brood. I've heard it takes a cell of honey and a cell of pollen to raise a new bee, so they'll have a net gain in space, if this is true, and if they are putting new honey above.

The ingredient in Apistan is not water soluable, so I wouldn't worry about eating honey myself. The standards for sale are stricter, as they should be. So I wouldn't see any harm to extracting some. In the spring, if all the frames are full, I like to stick in some empty comb right in the middle, so the queen can have lots of empty cells to fill.

Dave Green, SC USA

Putting Out The Fires

On using water rather than smoke to pacify honeybees.

What do the list think of using water rather than smoke when handling bees. A friend of mine uses it most of the time and swears by it. He claims that smoking bees causes severe disruption to their working, and that it takes many hours before the working tempo of the hive returns to normal.

I tried it out today, using a fine spray to put a `mist' on the bees, and it seemed to me to be about the same as smoke. They certainly seemed less inclined to fly. I handled one hive without any stings and got about the usual number from two other hives. I am going to try putting a small amount of sugar in the water next time.

Would using water be an idea when finding queens as I read that smoke causes the queen to make herself scarce?.

Tom Barrett, email@omitted.anti.spam
Foxrock, Dublin, Ireland

I myself have used water when working my bees and when sprayed in a fine mist, it does not seem to hurt a thing. It also seems to quiet them down some. Of course, one should not drown them.

I use a little sugar in the mix and when I combined a weak hive to a strong one, after the queen has been removed, I add a drop or two of vanilla extract. This also quiets them down by changing the smell of both to the same smell, as well as to give them something to do by removing the sugar from each other. Usually the combining hive is much smaller then the new host. It will eliminate the need for paper. Maybe others have tried this method. Would be happy to hear any and all about this.

Joe McManus
Loving You Honey Farms
Bremerton, WA. USA
email@omitted.anti.spam

Several posts deal with the use of minimum smoke, just a puff, to work hives easily. It is obvious that bees do not pour out massive clouds of pheromones compared to the puff of smoke, so it can be inferred that the smoke, even if one puff, would mask at least the alarm pheromone. And, using the same logic, if the hive on fire trigger is smoke, then it would only take one puff at the entrance to trigger that reaction.

Either way says use minimum smoke. It also answers the question of why wait for a few minutes to work the bees. You are waiting for the smoke to dissipate in the hive so most get the word. My guess, also, why I was taught to crack the lid and smoke the inner cover is impatience. We don't wait the few minutes to let the entrance puff to do its work but want to get right into the hive.

Bill Truesdell, Bath, ME mister-email@omitted.anti.spam

I learnt this trick for the first time last year in Ireland.

I used it regularly during the hot summer period and it worked extremely well - no need for sugar added to it.

My instinct is that in the sort of wet spring/summer we are experiencing here in the UK this year it would not be such a good idea to add even more moisture to the hive.

As others have already said I do not spray directly onto the combs but only on the top bars.

If the bees are very agitated it works wonders at quietening them down.

Some people may remember me enthusing about this last summer after Gormanston - the Irish beekeeping residential - where I was shown this method by an old-timer who recommended I try it when I had to examine a colony of bees that were being used for examination purposes and had been open and constantly pulled apart for an hour thereabouts. The bees were all up in the air and somewhat `stressed' by the experience and beginning to show it. In under a minute the combs were covered in bees again and the colony was at peace.

Madeleine Pym, London, UK email@omitted.anti.spam

I have a question: would the water get in the honey and cause it to ferment and make mead? Someone else on the list suggested using diluted vinegar. I have asthma and am allergic to smoke and would prefer not to use it but also don't want to risk my (very first!) honey crop.

Elizabeth Petofi.
New beekeeper in Orange Virginia email@omitted.anti.spam

I would be of the opinion that there is nothing to worry about here, since water is found abundantly in a hive for temperature control, for use by the bees and as a by product of ripening nectar. I would imagine that the little extra introduced by using a fine spray on the bees will not materially alter this, and the bees are well used to maintaining the water balance in the hive anyway.

I hope that Elizabeth will try using water (perhaps containing a small amount of sugar), and that she has good results from it.

I should like to thank those who replied to my post.

The consensus seems to be to use both water and smoke, and lean towards the water where possible.

Sincerely,
Tom Barrett, email@omitted.anti.spam

After reading all the postings I decided to see what effect the water would have on the hive. I needed to staple some hives together for moving so I felt that this would be a good place to experiment since I would not be opening the hives. I wanted the bees as calm as possible and as few flying as I could get. It was a hot day (95 degrees F). I filled a spray bottle with cold water and ice chips so the water would also serve to cool the beekeeper in the heat.

I worked two hives with this. Both hives had a heavy "beard" of bees all over the lower chamber, front sides and even the back. I gave the first hive a puff of smoke and waited. Then sprayed down all bees in the entrance and then those on the sides and back. The mist soaked them down pretty good and they seemed to just hang on and take it. I then used staples to attach the bottom board to the lower chamber and saw no reaction from the bees. I had to adjust the chambers on this hive to align them for attachment and this took a good deal of time and in the hot sun the cool spray was nice to have. After I finished the hive seemed calm and just a little wet.

The second hive took less time with the same results. It had a heavy beard and needed some adjustments. After I was done the hive seemed calm.

Al Lipscomb, email@omitted.anti.spam

We have had several encounters with water sprayers here in Tucson:

• Liz Coe brought back the technique from Germany after her year there - works really slick on queen nucs.
• The late great Jim Smith of Yuma, Arizona used a small spray bottle on Africanized bees the first time he saw them in central America, and basically said "What's all the fuss about these bees?" I believe his idea might have been to wash some of the pheromone out of the air and off of the bees.
• Since then, the technique has only been used sporadically, once by a visiting Liz Coe during a "demo" of AHB for a large group of beekeepers. She added a small amount of a flower scent (I believe she said it was a homeopathic "remedy"), and the bees really behaved themselves! (which, of course, ruined the AHB demo).

It's my understanding that sprayers especially made for this purpose are available in Europe, but the 99 cent variety works fine here. I like the idea of the ice. How about a low volume mist system such as some outdoor restaurants and patios use here, to keep a entire small apiary at bay while it is being worked ... anybody in Texas want to try this?

John F. Edwards
Biological Lab. Technician
Carl Hayden Bee Research Center email@omitted.anti.spam

I used sprayed water with just a touch of vinegar this evening on my Southern Vermont Bees and was delighted with how wonderfully calm they were! I smoked first from the outside at the bottom and top entrances and then used just the water for the "inside" work. This was not chilled water. Very pleased with this so far.

Jeff Hills email@omitted.anti.spam

If you put a drop of acetic acid (vinegar -- don't use technical!) into the water you will see that the bees will start drinking it up instead of jumping at you. Just spray it on the top frame sticks. As usual with bees no guarantee granted.

Jorn Johanesson
email@omitted.anti.spam EDBi = multilingual Beekeeping software since 1987 http://home4.inet.tele.dk/apimo (Denmark)

I have been a beekeeper for about 13 years and as a qualified beekeeping teacher I've given beekeeping courses for about 6 years. We mostly work with 2 brood chambers, on top of that an queen excluder and then 1 or 2 honey chambers depending on the honey flow.

For finding the queen use (little) smoke from below, for example through the hive entrance. Wait a little, then put the 2 brood chambers apart. The best change of finding your queen is in the top brood chamber. The queen attempts to walk away from the smoke. When you remove the first frame we put that one aside (we hang it temporary in a small 3 frame hive). Then take the second one out. while you take the frame out look sideways on the next frame, which is still hanging in the brood chamber. Often you see the queen walk away on that frame to the dark. Check the frame you have taken out if the queen is on it, then put it on the place where the first frame has been. Then take the next frame out, look , check and put the frame back. In that way you check the whole brood chamber.

After the initial use of smoke we use water in order:

• To quiet the bees down when they become restless again. We spray then only on top of the chambers with frames. We do not spray the the brood frame itself. Especially because in cool weather this can cool down the brood fast.
• to spray a little water on the top-arms of the frames so you do not squeeze so many bees while handling. We often work with bare hands on the Apiary where I teach. We smear Linseed oil on our hands.
• When you put the brood and honey chambers back on each other we spray water over edges of the chambers. the bees walk away from the edges of the chambers into the combs. This prevents squeezing a lot of bees.
• During queen rearing we do not use smoke but only water to check the frames with Queen cells on acceptance, to cage the queen cells and to take the queen cells out.

I find using water very helpful. I always have a plantspray container with me.

Hans van der Meijs, email@omitted.anti.spam

Can't find the Queen?

Sometimes you just can't find the queen.
It's funny how much harder it seems to be when you really need to ... Or do you?

Eliminating the need to find the queen

Great emphasis is placed in my area on finding queens. In fact there are two kinds of beekeepers, those who can find queens at the drop of a hat (or a veil!), and those who like myself have a major problem in finding her.

I am now of the opinion that I will never be in the league of the expert queen finders, and I must use different procedures to attempt to achieve the same end. With my track record, I cannot live with procedures which depend on finding the queen. I have trawled through as much documentation as I can, to find stratagems to carry out beekeeping without ever seeing a queen, and I show below how I am using some of these approaches. I would be most grateful for comments and improvements, as I have only recently started using them.

I use what may be termed a `Queen Isolator'. It consists of a Brood Chamber to which a queen excluder in pristine condition is nailed on the underside. The queen excluder must be in tip top condition since I am totally depending on it to exclude the queen. A cloth is placed to the top of the `Queen Isolator' to protect the brood from chilling.

1. IMHO I never need to see the queen among thousands of bees. During normal manipulations I need to see evidence of her existence in the form of eggs or larvae. (And if I cannot see eggs, I come back in four days and I should see larvae).
2. I must however be certain of where the queen is NOT. during swarm control, creating nucs, and requeening a hive. To generate a `box' of bees and brood without the queen, I remove one by one from the hive, the frames in which I am interested, and gently brush off ALL of the bees back into the hive. I do not shake, especially if the frame contains a queen cell in which I am interested. I then place the frames as they are cleared of bees, into the `Queen Isolator' and cover them with the cloth. Having processed all of the frames in which I am interested, I place the `Queen Isolator' on a strong hive. Bees, without the queen, will move up through the queen excluder to cover the frames. It normally takes about a half an hour (depending on temperature), to get a good covering of bees on the frames. Other hives can then be examined while the `Queen Isolator' is being loaded with bees, and any frames from other hives in which I am interested e.g. those with queen cells, can be added to the `Queen Isolator' as required, where for example I am building mating nucs. I have used the above procedure during this season, and it seems to work. The contents of the `Queen Isolator' can then be used to create an artificial swarm or a series of nucs etc. because we know that it does not contain a queen.
3. Although I have not yet tried it, I am going to use this procedure to eliminate the queen when a colony is to be requeened. (I have such a colony coming up for this procedure shortly). I am going to use the procedure outlined in 2 above until all but the queen and the drones have moved into the `Queen Isolator', and the queen, then in the hive box should be easily identified among the drones. In fact can the old brood chamber be just tossed out on to the grass some distance away, allowing the drones to fly and the queen to be lost?. The `Queen Isolator' now contains the bees and brood from the entire hive, but without the queen. I do not know how long it will take to isolate the queen and the drones in this case, but I am looking forward to trying it.
4. A variation on 3 above appeared in the American Bee Journal which effectively works in reverse. Under this system, the queen and drones end up in the `Queen Isolator'. This approach has the advantage that the process can be speeded up by using smoke, since the bees are being driven down from the `Queen Isolator' into a spare brood chamber. I am going to try this also.

Using the above procedures IMHO, a beekeeper never has to be worried about finding the queen. Just use the `Queen Isolator' and any problem involving the queen can be solved.

One thing that does strike me is, that the system depends on the assumption that a queen can never pass through a queen excluder. I would imagine that this proposition is not completely true, as queens with abnormally small thoraxes must sometimes occur. This means that the system is not 100% dependable but I would guess that it will succeed far more times than it will fail.

Comments, criticisms and additional information received as always with gratitude.

Sincerely, Tom Barrett
Foxrock, Dublin, Ireland
email@omitted.anti.spam

Using a "Queen Isolator" as described by Tom Barrett would seem to me to be a handy addition to one's set of choices for tools to use in making splits and being relatively assured of when the queen is NOT. It uses good logic and ought to work almost all of the time. I would wonder about how much of the time the queen that is dumped out somewhere else with the drones might make it back into the hive. Theoretically, if she is in full laying form, she will have great difficulty flying to make it back, but bees often surprise us and do things we think they cannot do. Still, odds are that it will work.

The second thought I had was that (and this is probably assumed and implicit in what Tom was describing) virgin queens have to be able to get out and back into the hive for mating and returning to lay. That's why if a hive supersedes with a pollen collector on the entrance, it can become queenless. If there is a queen excluder on the bottom and no top entrance, you'd have the same problem. Therefore I assume that as soon as you've isolated the frames and bees from which to make the split that you move them into a normal hive body with no excluder in place so the new queen can normally mate and return.

Other than that, I don't see why everything Tom has described shouldn't work fine. I, on the other hand, personally receive a great sense of accomplishment when I find a queen, and wouldn't want to deprive myself of that feeling and pleasure in concluding a successful hunt with its attendant thrill. That way I also have a winder range of options open to me. It's part of the satisfaction I receive from beekeeping. As a matter of fact, I got a great sense of satisfaction the other day from finding a laying worker in one of my hives and dispatching her. Her size was not so much different from the other workers, and her body form was only slightly queen-like, but her behavior was quite different from the other bees, and their behavior towards her was different than toward each other. I was therefore "sure" I had found her. I recommend this experience as a very good one to anyone who hasn't had it yet.

Layne Westover
College Station, Texas
email@omitted.anti.spam

Ernest Huber describes an interesting method for handling the re-queening of an aggressive colony in a location surrounded by neighbours.

He has effectively `bled' off the aggressors and at the same time got them to accept the new queen by placing the nucleus on the stand of the old hive. This seems like an excellent idea.

If he now uses the Queen Isolator on the moved hive will not the queen be trapped below the Isolator and be easily dispatched without having to be found in the traditional way?. I suppose the question of brushing off or shaking the bees in a suburban location may possibly cause alarm due to the number of flying bees, but at least we are now dealing with the less aggressive bees. I have recently begun using water instead of smoke to calm the bees during manipulations, and the next time I use the Queen Isolator, I am going to spray the bees slightly (rather like the procedure for getting bees for an Apidea), before I brush them into the hive, as I believe that this will significantly reduce the number of flying bees.

I will try Ernest's suggestion of using the nucleus, and I will post an account of what happens.

Tom Barrett

There has been lots written recently regarding finding queens. Another slick method, add a queen excluder, wait 5-6 days, the queen is where the eggs are, at least this way you can reduce the amount of frames to examine by 50%.

Then use the take away method, where that box is removed some distance from the hive allowing mature bees to return to the main hive. I would think it should be relatively easy.

Another method. Buy from us a small phial, marked `experience', not overly expensive, but vital when dealing with bees.

David Eyre,
The Bee Works,
Ontario, Canada
http://www.beeworks.com

On 6/17/99 Tom Barrett wrote about using what he called a Queen Isolator to avoid having to find the queen. Unfortunately there are times when one MUST find the queen. For us hobbyist beekeepers one of these times comes at the worst time-ie when the hive population is really huge (like two or three layers deep on the frames) and also when the hive is very aggressive (like they fly up at your face as soon as you barely crack the inner cover). If such a hive is very productive and has over-wintered well AND if it is remote from humans then normally one might tend to leave it be, or at worst one could carry out anti-swarm procedures by shaking frames or brushing frames in order to carry out a Demaree. A backyard hobby beekeeper however needs to do something about such a hive in a more benign, less disruptive way in order to reclaim his backyard and to keep his neighbors from complaining. The standard advice in this case is to requeen, which means you MUST find the old queen.

I have tried just about every method that has ever been described in print-and some that aren't in print to find the queen in this type of situation. I have tried the upside-down version of the Queen Isolator that Tom alludes to, as described in the ABJ. It didn't work because, a) these particular bees' response to smoke was to move UP and not DOWN through the excluder and,b) because this particular queen, I am convinced, could fly (and did).

About the only method that I have consistently had success with under the above described situation is to MOVE THE HIVE a short distance and then leave behind a nucleus colony to recapture the foragers from the moved colony. Then, about a day or two or three later-after the mean old foragers have gone back to the old hive stand- the moved colony can EASILY be gone through for queen finding. The bees are no longer two or three deep on the frames. They no longer erupt in a cloud when you crack the inner cover and they no longer dive-bomb your face in a ferocious attack. The left-behind nucleus colony then contains the new queen for reconstructing the old colony on the original spot.

I would appreciate it if some of you other BEE-L members would comment on my method, but it is the only method that I have found to be a reasonable one for aggressive hives in a close-to-the-neighbors type of situation.

Sincerely, Ernie Huber email@omitted.anti.spam

This simple method will work almost as well. I have an old picnic table that I keep behind my backyard colonies... about 20-25 feet behind them in fact. Unstack the supers to one side of the colony, break the brood nest from the bottom board, and carry the brood box back to the table. Place the supers back on the bottom board. Place an extra unused brood box three feet down the table . Now extract the frames in order, examine for the queen, and let the guards all ornery workers fly! They immediately go back over to the hive site and enter the supers, ready to defend them. As observed in the response post, most all but the young bees and queen return. If you fail to find the queen in one time through, relook as you return the frames to their proper box... At that point there are many fewer bees and almost no meanies, and there should be no problem finding the queen.

I have one other suggestion for Tom, who says he just doesn't have the ability to find the queen. Try this. Build a four frame, stand size Nuc containing all those ingredients for making an emergency queen... eggs, day old larvae or a grafted Jzz..Bzz cell, pollen, and honey- feed syrup. Watch these cells develop, carefully observing what happens and when. They should cap at 4.5-5 days, and hatch on day 10.5-12. Out on the 11th day start looking in the nuc at least daily, or even more... this doesn't have to be a true SWARM BOX. you want a good queen, but a great one is not necessary. But go into this nuc as often as you can... You may not even need smoke; virgin queens tend to be `runny' or nervous, but grow rapidly especially after they mate, but are usually quite easy to find, even just hatched virgins, with few bees and none mean. Your problem, Tom, is that you have not been to successful finding the queen, and I recall when I first became a beekeeper, my confidence level was not great either, and this little trick taught me how to find queens. I do add however, I hope you are using Italians... these big yellow to Orange babes are eyecatching! Caucasians and other dark bees with coal black queens are never as easy to spot... when I have had these, I just MARK 'EM... with a white liquid paper dot! You can't beat this with a stick! And good luck!

Robert Barnett
email@omitted.anti.spam

The method described by Ernie was recommended to me as a new beekeeper faced with an aggressive colony by a local queen breeder. I also recommend it for all small scale beekeepers or those who have their hives close at hand so traveling time is not a consideration.

This method avoids all confrontation and works within the instinctive behaviour pattern to make life easier for the beekeeper and still achieve the desired manipulation.

It is not necessary to move the hive far. I simply turn the aggressive hive at 90 degrees and place the new hive box in the front. I do not introduce a queen to the front hive. It may help the bees settle if a frame of sealed brood is placed in the front. After a few days, all foragers will have returned to the front hive and the original hive can be searched with minimum smoke since it will then be populated mainly by the queen, drones and nurse bees. After culling the queen (with great satisfaction), the hive can be united and a new queen introduced. Since the front box has not been exposed to a competing queen, they will accept an introduced queen with alacrity.

One hint for locating hard-to-spot queens. If queen is in bottom brood box (I use queen excluders), smoke entrance lightly and wait 1 minute. Open hive and remove any supers. Remove outside frame, examine for queen and lean against front. Do the same for other outside frame. Now, leaving a space between frames and the hive side, lift one frame at a time working from one side to the other, looking ONLY for the queen (no distractions, no admiring of brood pattern, no egg inspection). 30 seconds a frame is usually enough. Smoke the entrance if bees start to run about on the frame but not the top of the frames. If the queen still eludes you, repeat the frame inspection. It is very rarely that I cannot find the queen within 3 minutes using this method.

With practice, the queen can be located by identifying where the majority of bees are. As the queen moves across the frame, workers will turn their heads towards her leaving a small space around her and this pattern is easy to detect. As long as the hive has not been alarmed, the queen will be going about her duties.

By continually selecting lines for docility and productivity and culling aggressive hives (measuring the level of aggression against the other hives in the apiary on that day) I rarely encounter the aggressive behaviour of my early hives.

Because of traveling time to apiary sites, I now use the Queen Isolator described by Tom. The queens to be culled are known before I arrive in the apiary and I take extra care to pause after smoking and to move very, very slowly in removing frames. I carry the queens in introduction cages to the apiary and plan on requeening 10 - 12 hives in one day, as well as working 30 + hives for honey.

Betty McAdam
Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island, Australia
email@omitted.anti.spam

Requeening Without Looking for the Queen

Nick Wallingford

A description of requeening a hive without having to look for the old queen. Variation of an article that originally appeared in the Beginners Notes column of the NZ Beekeeper No. 192, Summer 1986, pp 20-22.

One of the big stumbling blocks for many beginner beekeepers is that problem of how do you actually get the queen into the hive. The fundamentals -- the colony should be queenless, it should be well fed and it should have young bees emerging.

How do you actually go about doing it? Most books tell you simply to find the old queen, kill her, and introduce your young queen in the mailing cage she came in. Fine, you think. Until you go out to look through your (strong) (aggressive) (agitated) colony for the queen. And knowing that you have your valuable, newly-arrived queen sitting in the house just waiting to be installed!

So this message will be mostly devoted to giving you a method of introducing new queens to your hives without ever having to look for the old queen. And like any such system, it is not foolproof. It works for me and for many other beekeepers, but if it doesn't for you, first make sure you are following directions. Then consider special problems you might have, especially as they relate to the `golden rules' of queenless, well-fed, with plenty of young bees.

The system I will describe is not new, and it was not my idea. It's a combination of all sorts of ideas. Its the sort of management technique that develops when you have a fair idea of what you want to do, but you're not sure how. Then, rather than just making up your system, you sit back and think about bee behaviour and try to work effectively within the bounds of the ways bees will usually respond to certain stimuli.

The object of the system is to create a nucleus colony on top of the old colony. I wanted a system that could be easily used by hobbyist or commercial beekeeper alike, without ever looking for the queen. It should be versatile, both in being able to deal with colonies of differing strengths and with end results. That is, the resulting nucleus, or top, can be used to re-queen with or to start a new colony. The method should use a minimum of extra equipment, and no exotic or complicated gadgets (much as I like them...)

They are based around beekeeping systems that use two full depth brood chambers for most of the year. The system introduces a third box, which is of the same depth as the brood chamber boxes. After all is complete, you'll want to work this extra box `out', especially if you (1) use different depth boxes for storing/extracting surplus and/or (2) you are particular about using white comb only (never used for brood rearing) as honey supers.

The only `extra' piece of equipment needed is a split board, also known as a division board. To those of you who may not know what that is, it is simply a hive mat (inner cover) that has had a notch cut out of the rim on one side so as to form an entrance for a colony set above it. The notch can be anywhere from 20 to 100 mm wide; I prefer to have mine about 50 mm, making it large enough for a fairly strong unit but still small enough that the bees can protect it while the colony is still small.

I have modified the inner covers on all of my hives in this manner. Just to try something new this last autumn, I turned them over on my hives in an effort to give some sort of upper ventilation. I'm not really sure how much good it did.

You will also need a queen excluder. As I have one of these for each hive as a matter of course, that is no problem. One last piece of equipment needed will be another box of drawn comb.

Now, after all that prelude, let's see how the system works. For the sake of beginning, let us assume that it is springtime and your colony is housed in two boxes and you want to simply re-queen it. As you'll see later, you have other options, but let's start from this basic case.

When you open your hive, you'll find most of the brood and bees in the upper box. Remove three frames of brood, both sealed and unsealed, from the centre of the brood nest. Take a glance over them first to see if you can spot the queen. Now that you're starting on a method that means you don't have to find her, its amazing how often you will! Then shake all of the bees off of them, back into the colony.

You needn't shake off every last one of them, so long as you are sure that the queen is not one of the bees remaining. Now, place these three frames into the middle of the box of combs you have brought with you.

If there are plenty of stores in the parent colony, take two good frames of honey, shake the bees from them, and place them in the new box with the three frames of brood. If there is not much honey in the hive, you will have to feed either the parent hive, the nucleus, or in the worst case, both.

Now, you can start to re-build the hive. Replace all the frames you have taken from the parent colony with empty combs, doing your best not to split the brood nest if possible. On top of this second box, place the queen excluder. On top of the excluder, place the new box containing the brood and honey that has had the bees shaken from them.

Put the lid on the hive and go away. Think about what you have just done. You have lifted brood and bees above the excluder. What is going to happen to the brood up there? The pheromones it gives off will attract nurse bees that are down in the main hive up to it. Combining that with the frames of honey, the third box that you have added has quite a `pull' to bring bees up into it. But remember, there is a queen excluder between the boxes, so there is no way the old queen can come up there.

After about 20 minutes, if you go back to the hive and lift the lid, you will find that enough bees have come up into the nucleus to take care of the brood, defend the colony and take care of your new queen.

All you have to do now is replace the queen excluder with the division board and presto! You have your nucleus colony ready for introducing the young queen. It is queenless (because the queen couldn't come up through the excluder). It has plenty of young bees (because they have come up to take care of the brood you lifted). And it has plenty of food (because you provided them with two frames of honey). All the conditions have been met for ideal queen introduction. You can expect that some of the bees will drift back to the main colony, but the young bees taking care of the brood will most likely remain - the new unit shouldn't drop in bee strength too drastically.

This system could be used on a larger number of hives. By the time the beekeeper has worked through the yard, shaking bees from brood and honey to lift into the new box, the first hive would have been left long enough for the bees to come up.

Introduce your young queen into the top and wait a week. Don't disturb them in this time if at all possible; until the new queen is established and laying fully, the bees haven't really fully accepted her. Disturb them during this period and it is possible for them to turn on her.

After a week, you will have a parent colony on the bottom, only slightly reduced in strength by the bees, brood and honey you took. And you will have a nucleus colony headed by a young queen above the split board, all set for your next decision.

You can either use it to re-queen the parent colony, or you could place it on its own floor to use for increasing your colony numbers. If you choose the second option, it would be best if you actually moved it several miles away to avoid the loss of field strength through drifting.

If you want to re-queen the parent colony, you could now go through it, looking for the old queen, preparing to unite the two colonies by replacing the split board with a sheet of newspaper for them to chew their way through. But that would defeat the whole point, wouldn't it? We're supposed to be doing this without ever looking for a queen, aren't we?

If you can go through and find the old queen, aided by any tricks/knacks you might have to quickly locate queens, so much the better. You're certain of results then.

But, believe it or not, you have the odds of success heavily in your favour if you simply newspaper the two units together without looking for the old queen at all. In almost 90% of the cases, if you unite two colonies with the young queen on the top of an old queen, the young queen will be left to head the resulting hive.

Why this happens is open to argument. Some beekeepers will tell you that the bees always select the best of the two queens. I doubt that. My explanation goes along the lines of the young queen's bees are confined in the top box when you replace the split board with newspaper. As well, her field bees returning cannot use their normal entrance, the slot on the split board. They then drift down to the main colony entrance. As they are foragers returning with a load, they will be accepted without causing outrageous fighting at the hive entrance. I think the old queen is then probably killed by the `scissor' effect of bees foreign to her coming at her from both directions - down as the bees confined above the newspaper chew through and move down in the hive, and up by the foragers from the top unit coming in through the bottom entrance and finding a `strange' queen in `their' hive.

It has certainly worked for me, and if the thought of trying to find queens is an impossible one for you, the system might be worth considering. You might just want to experiment with it to see if the time savings will repay the small amount of uncertainty involved.

It's not the answer to all of a beekeepers problems, but it just gives you an idea how by thinking a little bit about bee behaviour, you can sort out your management system to make your life a little easier while doing all you can in the interests of maximum production. Send a message to email@omitted.anti.spam for a full list of files that you can `order' from the NZ Beekeeping system

Nick Wallingford

A Drone Layer

I have what appears to be a drone-laying queen, and I'm wondering what to do about it.

This particular hive threw at least one and possibly two swarms three or four weeks ago. Since then we have had (as we typically do here in the Seattle area) many cold rainy days interspersed with a few sunny ones. When I checked the hive last night I found solid sheets of brood in all stages of development, BUT everything that was sealed had the typical bullet shaped cappings of drone cells. There were some fairly large solid sheets of sealed drone brood.

So I assume that what happened is that the virgin queen that resulted from the swarm(s) failed to mate adequately during the rainy periods.

My question is, can I simply requeen in the ordinary way? Would it be better to give the hive a comb of eggs and hope they'll supersede the drone-layer, or should I buy a queen and try to introduce her after dispatching the drone-layer

Thanks for your opinions...

Dan Brown
email@omitted.anti.spam
Western Washington State

Think about the age of the bees in the colony. Are they worth saving? If the colony swarmed 3-4 weeks ago, no brood was laid a week prior to that, meaning 4-5 weeks ago. With a gestation period of 3 weeks (21 days) for worker bees and an average adult life of just 6 weeks - what can you save?

It is very difficult to get a group of foraging age bees to accept a new queen, so you might be spending $10 for nothing.

This is why I always keep a nuc "hanging around" my apiary, so I have a free queen to use as I see fit just in case I lose a swarm or, etc.

Hope I have made you think it out. Good Luck!

George Imirie
email@omitted.anti.spam

From my personal experience, I had a drone layer but thought my hive was queenless so I added a frame of brood with eggs. They did not produce a new queen to supersede her. They just raised them out into workers. I then introduced a new queen in a cage and when she finally got out, they balled and killed her. That was when I finally searched relentlessly until I found the drone-laying queen and removed her when I had another mated queen in the mail. My introduction after removing the drone layer was successful, but I lost about a month during that time. That hive didn't become productive until the following year.

Layne Westover
email@omitted.anti.spam
College Station, Texas

You are probably right on the queen not mating. But giving them a queen will likely waste that queen. If they are still quite strong, give them a couple frames of brood with some eggs from a good colony. They'll raise a queen that they will accept. If they have dwindled, use it as a super on a good hive.

If you insist on giving them a queen, give them some brood anyway. That way you'll have some young bees to care for the queen ... or... eggs to raise a queen after they kill the introduced one.

Dave Green, Hemingway, SC USA
email@omitted.anti.spam

Don't waste good money & Queens on a known drone-laying hive. Take the hive out of the yard, shake out the bees and start over.

Harold; email@omitted.anti.spam

New Comb, New Queen?

For a while now I've been considering how the timing of Beulah Cullen's new year, new comb philosophy and Bill Dartnall's Early Queens technique might fit together,

Beulah advocates moving colonies to new comb every year by giving them new foundation and a modest feed of light (1:1) syrup around mid-March.

Not long after that, Bill begins his early queens method when the first of the drones appear in early April, raising new queens for the current season. And that process also results in the creation of new comb.

It seems to me that the closeness of the timings could be helpful.

I have been wondering whether one can start the generation of new comb in all colonies but the queen raiser at the normal time, but then raise new queens by Bill's method to requeen the colonies rather than leave them headed by the previous year's queens. And Bill's method also generates a full set of new combs.

Let me now say that I haven't yet sat down with pencil and paper with which to walk through the timings of this idea, however it sounds fairly reasonable to me.

I would be very interested in the views you have on this, particularly if you can see any particular problems or if you have views on how the bees might react to this kind of preemption of their normal behaviour.

One obvious issue is that the new comb technique should, for most people in our area, be completed in time for the oil-seed crop, however that may be too early for the first drones.

If I feel there's a reasonably convincing strategy available, I'll try and write it up for the December newsletter.

Gordon