Keeping bees

Does it make  a lot of sense to what I used to do .

Have your breeder hives back at home double brooded and very well  fed , then makeup / split off 6 frame neuc hives in your normal hives for the pollinating tasks .
 
As soon as you take the splits away ,  start  queen production & making up more neuc's to account for ..say 50%   losses .  That way if you lose the pollinators your not wiped out .  If you don't lose them you can always unite two hives to make best use of equipment .

A good plan Plantoid.

This afternoon I found one of my hives wasn't queenright. I took a frame of brood and eggs from the other hive.  Hope they make some Queens.  I will check their progress in a week.

Not wanting to teach my Granny how to suck eggs Camp .....what state of play were the eggs at ? ( I had to end up using a magnifying glass to see them )


http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/tracking-the-life-cycle-of-a-honey-bee.html

 Alvin my mentor used to say that for Queen less hives , try & get the eggs that are upright as they have just been laid & have a better chance of being used .

 He used to use a scalpel when out in the apiaries to cut a few cells away the next row below the best eggs so that the workers had an easier task at drawing the queen cell .

 At home he used queen cell cups & grafting tools on modified brood frames in a breeding neuc  box.
 

The link has a couple of decent pictures as well as a diagram.



 Just seen your last post.. hope this one is also of use .

plantoid wrote:Not wanting to teach my Granny how to suck eggs Camp what state of play were the eggs at ? ( I had to end up using a magnifying glass to see them )

All stages, fresh eggs right up through capped brood and some nurse bees were transferred on one frame.

plantoid wrote:Not wanting to teach my Granny how to suck eggs...

Teaching grandmother to suck eggs is an English-language saying, meaning that a person is giving advice to someone else about a subject that they already know about (and probably more than the first person).

This thread is like reading Greek,  but this phrase I had to  look up!  
I hope Alison is keeping track of all the plantoidisms tossed her way!  

camprn - You lost in a queen in a brand new package??

Pollinator, I would not have thought about the almond bees and our southern packages being connected like that. Huh.

At any rate, it would be interesting to hear the package suppliers tell what's going on, just for the sake of being aware of any developments in the bee world. If this is just an isolated supplier or two and not typical, then I would guess it's just a blip.

NHGardener wrote:camprn - You lost in a queen in a brand new package??

yup, but it was after the two week period where a replacement would go given. Weird. And thanks Boffer!   

Wow camprn, sorry to hear that.

I'll be interested to know whether you grow your own queen! Almost like doing a split with a new package.

boffer wrote:

plantoid wrote:Not wanting to teach my Granny how to suck eggs...

Teaching grandmother to suck eggs is an English-language saying, meaning that a person is giving advice to someone else about a subject that they already know about (and probably more than the first person).

This thread is like reading Greek,  but this phrase I had to  look up!  
I hope Alison is keeping track of all the plantoidisms tossed her way!  

  You should try it from this angle ... I'm an Englishman speaking the Queens / Kings  English .. Americanese is rather amusing & sometimes confusing.     


Off topic I know ..
I'm doing a MOOC  on Thinking & Making decisions .
The jargon and structure of sentences  often used is like having to think backwards some days , to try and get a clearer picture of what is being said .   I suppose it's the same for  you guys reading & hearing real English .

Had a multimillionaire lady friend from Texas say " Gosh Dave you speak such good English ", I whispered in her ear " That's because I'm an Englishman , Darling " .

Pollinator, I absolutely love reading your bee stories.

NHG, my bees were delayed because of weather twice now.  They came from Georgia and I guess recently they had tornadoes.  

I get my bees tomorrow for sure, yay!  We had a nice pancake breakfast/ plant swap last weekend with the bee club.  I also got my first sting.  It was my fault, she crawled right up my pant leg.  Cant imagine getting one on my face.  Camp, hope your face is better.

All thats left to do is get our gate up (keep my toddlers & dogs out).

Looking good! And thank you my face is all better.

Ooh R&R that garden/bee setup looks really nice!

I was talking with a couple others whose bees are also delayed who are none too thrilled about it. Dandelion rush will probably be over by the time the bees come, and it won't be long till we might have a dearth, altho I'm desperately throwing buckwheat seed right now which the bees can feast on all thru the summer. Unfortunately the chickens seem to crave buckwheat seed (probably the chipmunks, etc. do too) so it's a race to see how much I can throw vs. how long I can keep them out of it...

Anyway, yeah, I still have hives to assemble and paint, so who am I kidding, June 2 will be here too soon.

Dandelions have been a bit of a bust here due to lack of rain. Dearth is in July.

Really camprn? I have dandelions all over my yard. Unless you're saying the nectar is impaired in them.

But right now it was just gloriously raining, and I guess we'll get some heavy rain around dawn - yay.

NHGardener wrote:Really camprn? I have dandelions all over my yard. Unless you're saying the nectar is impaired in them.

Yes exactly. I am so thankful for the rain!

camprn wrote:

NHGardener wrote:camprn - You lost in a queen in a brand new package??

yup, but it was after the two week period where a replacement would go given. Weird. And thanks Boffer!   

Queen breeders hate this, but it happens. Most likely it was a rainy or cold day when the queen went for her mating flight. Normally you'd want a queen to mate with 12-15 drones, and on a beautiful day, that's pretty easy. But on a day when there are popup showers the mating flight may have ended with only a couple drones, or cold weather may have just made the drones sparse. The young queens have only a narrow window when they must make that flight. Once in awhile they will go out on a second day to make up for a deficiency, but not always.

A queen that has only mated with a couple drones can start out fine, but she has a very limited supply of sperm and she can run out quickly. They she'll either quit or start laying drone eggs in worker cells.

Back when I was buying queens, I've had whole batches of them that started off fine, but were shot in a month or so. Bad weather during mating.

Unfortunately, when breeding queens, we cannot always schedule warm sunny days, with an occasional rainy night. https://2img.net/i/fa/i/smiles/icon_sad.gif

Bees are in!  So pulled out my queen cage and she was dead!  I was like oh great.  So I installed my bees and what do I spot?  A queen already mixed with the bees.

R&R 1011 wrote:Bees are in!  So pulled out my queen cage and she was dead!  I was like oh great.  So I installed my bees and what do I spot?  A queen already mixed with the bees.

Good lord your lucky! She is two years old. Call and get a replacement for the dead queen.
http://beeinformed.org/2011/11/finding-the-queen/slide1-11/

Thank you for that, Camp.  Ill call the bee guy back tomorrow.  I wondered how old she was.
 
BUT if she lays for awhile and then craps out, the bees will raise their own queen.  So do I really need to replace her?  Should I wait to see how she lays?

R&R 1011 wrote:Thank you for that, Camp.  Ill call the bee guy back tomorrow.  I wondered how old she was.
 
BUT if she lays for awhile and then craps out, the bees will raise their own queen.  So do I really need to replace her?  Should I wait to see how she lays?

raising their own queen is possible.of may take upward of 30+ days to make a laying queen and you want a laying queen sooner than that. Besides your package came with a dead queen. The provider should replace her immediately.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmath.htm

camprn - how can you tell how old she is? 

No wonder they killed the queen (if that's what happened), they already have one.

NHGardener wrote:camprn - how can you tell how old she is? 

No wonder they killed the queen (if that's what happened), they already have one.

the color of her marking. Look at the link I posted.

I saw the bee math link there, but I didn't see anything about marking color or 2 years??

I just got Michael Bush's book today! Yay.

NHGardener wrote:I saw the bee math link there, but I didn't see anything about marking color or 2 years??

I just got Michael Bush's book today! Yay.

International queen marking colors
http://beeinformed.org/2011/11/finding-the-queen/slide1-11/


Bee math
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmath.htm