The Virgin Queen

June 19, 2014

I stayed home from work on this glorious day to go into Mab.  I needed to make sure she wasn't starting to dream of heading out too.  She is doing so well.  I went through to the bottom and not one queen cell to be found.  I did find an empty queen cup on one frame but no worries there.  I added many open frames and added 2 boxes on top so Mab is 6 boxes high now.  I didn't find her majesty but everything looks ship shape.

Going into Queen Mab

I then went over to the new hive to see what was happening.  In the top box I found an empty queen cell that clearly had hatched a queen.  I didn't find her so I kept on going.  In the bottom box I found another empty queen cell that had been gnawed open.  Right beside this open cell was a capped cell.

Open queen cell, vacated by queen and capped cell on right

Further along the same frame I found a murdered queen.  You can see the hole where the queen opened it up and then stung the young queen in her cell.  Better than Shakespeare!

Capped queen cell bitten open and killed by queen

Now that there was evidence that a queen had hatched I started looking for her.  A virgin queen is very small so she is hard to distinguish from the workers.  As well she can move really fast.  I found her wandering through the frame.  She was moving quite quickly over and under all the bees on the frame as she oriented herself to her hive.

Virgin queen on right at the top of frame

This queen will orient herself to the hive for about a week and then head out into the wilds for fertilization.  She will fly to areas where drones hang out waiting for virgins which is called a Drone Congregation Area (DCA).  There the queen will be fertilized by 14-18 drones.  She will fly very fast and very high and the drones that can catch up with her will be the "lucky" ones to fertilize her.  You may remember from some of my educational posts that the "lucky" drones actually have their genitals torn out in the action and then fall to the earth...dead.  The queen then will come back to the hive and within a few days will start laying.  So, by my reckoning, she will be heading out June 26 and then will be ready to start laying around July 1.  What I am really curious about is whether there is another virgin queen wandering around this hive and whether the rest of the capped queen cells have been murdered.  I will probably go in again in a couple of days just to see.

What is happening in the garden during all the excitement, you ask?

Strawberries thanks to the pollinators

Campanula

Daisies

White clover

Clematis

Chives 

And more to come as we head into the beautiful, lush summer.  Happy Summer Solstice!

Catching up on Waxen City Part II

 June 1 - June 15--Queen Olivia is getting frisky!

I decided to go through Olivia from top to bottom to see how she was doing.  She is a booming hive and that makes me nervous.  You all know by now that a healthy hive wants to split (swarm) to reproduce and she is soooo healthy.  My goal this season is to learn how to keep the hives from swarming.  It's my responsibility as an urban beekeeper to avoid swarms since it is so epic when they swarm. I also want to learn to avoid them since a pile of honey and 1/2 the bees go with the swarm and that is a great loss.  Also, the hive has to make a new queen which takes time and sets the colony back.

Olivia has tons of capped brood and tons of open brood.  I added open frames between all the frames of brood again.  I added a box of empty frames for honey storage.  I didn't find the queen but all seemed well until I spotted one queen cell with a larva in it.  There were nurse bees feeding it!  Yikes!    The cell is in the centre of the frame which usually means supersedure (something wrong with the queen so the bees have to make a new queen) so now it is even more important to find the queen.  I will have to go in again as soon as possible to see what is up. I'm nervous!

Queen cell with larva being fed

I then went into Mab who is looking really good.  I am continuing to add frames to keep the brood open and hope that this will do the trick.  I found her majesty...though she seems slow, she is a great layer and I think that I have underestimated her.

Her Majesty Queen Mab and her retinue

She is a gorgeous fat queen with lovely stripes...a combination of Ontario genes mixed with Buckfast.  I have been worried about her since she comes from a queen who swarmed very early in the season last year.

June 15  Fathers Day            

Queen Olivia sets her sights on the horizon!  With trepidation I went into Olivia to see why I had found a queen cup with larva.  Worse and worse, I found about 8 capped queen cups throughout the hive!  Some of the capped queen cells were on the bottom and some in the centre of the frames.  The hive was very agitated.  I had Kelly visiting today and found that I had difficulty making a decision about what to do.  Was Olivia planning to swarm or had something bad happened to the queen and was the hive  trying to replace her?  As we went through the hive we finally found Queen Olivia in the last box we checked.  She was a lot skinnier than the last time we saw her which should have told me what was up immediately.  When a queen decides that it is time to swarm she will lay eggs in queen cups for the workers to take care of.  She will also start losing weight to get ready to fly again.  Remember that she has not flown since she was fertilized so she needs to do some yoga and exercise to get fit.

Capped queen cell

Queen Olivia...see if you can find her

Queen Olivia laying eggs...her butt is in a cell

I took off my gear and sat with a glass of ice water to think about my next steps.  I decided that the only thing I could do would be to build a whole new hive with all the queen cells.  I waited an hour to let Olivia stop being so angry about being taken apart since I knew I would be doing exactly the same thing again.

I found every single frame with queen cells and put them into a new box.  I added honey frames and a lot of frames with capped and open brood so there would be lots of workers in the hive.  I made sure to find the queen again so that I didn't accidentally put her in the new hive.  This new hive ended up being three boxes high with the top box being full of nectar frames.  I also added empty frames to give them work.  Here is the math of what happened in Olivia and what should happen in this hive:

June 4    Olivia laid the eggs in the queen cups.

June 7    The eggs hatch into larva which I spotted on June 9

June 12   The queen cups get capped and the larva goes through changes

June 15    I moved the queen cups into the new hive.               

June 20   The queen emerges and if she is first she kills all other queens in their cells

June 24   The queen has oriented herself and is ready to fly out to be fertilized by drones

July 3      The queen starts to lay 2000 eggs per day and never leaves the hive again...unless...sigh...

Building the new hive

So now I am the proud owner of three hives!  

Three hive bee yard!

I put a branch in front of the new hives opening so that the bees become aware of the change.  Most of the foragers were out so they will go back to their original hive.  As the brood emerges the new hive will build its own foragers.  The queen won't be laying until the beginning of July so this hive will have a gap in its timing and hopefully I have given it enough bees and honey to keep it going.

New hive with branch crossing opening

Olivia is already more relaxed and is buzzing away like nothing happened.    This is all very exciting and if it works I will still have succeeded in avoiding a swarm...the split that I just did is also known as an artificial swarm since Olivia will think that she has in fact swarmed (kind of).  Mab didn't even notice all the commotion next door.

My next job will be to check Mab to make sure she isn't having similar urges.  I will also check the new hive to see if a queen has emerged.  Next post!

Catching up with Waxen City news Part I

Diary of events from May 11 - May 25 2014

Sorry to have been silent for so long!  No excuses...just apologies!

May 11
Spring!!!  Finally got to go into the bees as the weather was showing signs of warming up.  Blooming plants all around.

Spring!  Trillium in bloom

Redbud

Pear blossoms

Queen Olivia is booming.  I added empty frames between her brood to keep her working instead of thinking of swarming.  I also added two boxes on top to keep her busy.  Found her Majesty laying and ignoring me entirely.  I also gave her a screened bottom for ventilation.

Queen Olivia

Queen Mab looked like she was struggling so I went through all of her boxes.  I found that her bottom board was a sodden mess as the plywood had soaked up all moisture.  There was mold and a pile of dead bees in the bottom.  I cleaned it all up and gave her a screened bottom for ventilation.  Right away the hive seemed happier.

Victoria Day  May 19
Gorgeous day!  Had a bee lover join me for my bee check.  Went into Olivia just to give her a look at a very healthy hive.  We found Queen Olivia easily...she was hard at work with no interest in us.

Apprentice Kelly

We then went into Mab and found her majesty!  She looked very slow and sluggish so we thought we should give her some honey from Olivia to make sure the hive kept going. Very exciting for Kelly to see both queens on her first visit...also exciting for me.  We also found an empty queen cup...nothing to worry about as there was no egg or larva in it.

Empty queen cup

Beautiful lady slipper

Honey bee on dandelion...first source of pollen

May 25

Kelly joined me again and we added empty frames into Olivia and gave a quick check in Mab.   She was starting to strengthen and the hive was busier.  The weather is starting to be lovely and people are much friendlier.  I am starting to dream of gardening.

End of Part I

Politics, pesticides and bees...oh my!

June 1, 2014

Ontario is in election mode...voting day is June 12.  If you are wondering how to choose one party over another, how about thinking about the bees and checking out their platforms on the environment.

The Ontario Beekeepers Association is a very quiet organization but they have become vocal as it becomes increasingly obvious that neonicotinoids, pesticides made by Bayer and Syngenta are causing havoc with bee health as well as native pollinators.  It is also very obvious that our politicians are unwilling to go up against these corporate giants and keep handing the decision making to other levels of government.

Here is the OBA's press release for you to look at.  Ask all your candidates these questions and see if they have an answer...if they have even thought about it.

I cannot think of any issue as pressing as this one not because I am a beekeeper but because the health of the bees is an indicator of the health of the world.

Check out your candidate and their stance.  Whatever party you vote for...make sure you vote!

May 28, 2014

PRESS RELEASE

Ontario’s political parties express positions on bee health

 Milton, ON, May 28, 2014. The Ontario Beekeepers’ Association has surveyed each of the four major parties running in this year’s provincial election for their plan to solve Ontario’s current bee health crisis.

 In 2012 and 2013, over 14,000 hives were lost to bee kills linked to the indiscriminate use of neonicotinoid pesticides by Health Canada. Last year, nearly 99% of the 2.2 million acres of corn in Ontario were treated with neonicotinoids, even though the Ontario Ministry of Food and Agriculture crop specialists indicate that only 10% to 20% of acreage needs pest protection.

 The OBA has released a revised position on neonicotinoids and bee health. The new position calls for a moratorium on the sale of neonicotinoid treated seeds but offers the option for farmers to apply for one-time use if they can a demonstrate, through an approved soil test or monitoring program, a problem that requires neonicotinoid-treated seeds.  This position is consistent with that adopted by the National Farmers Union.

 Two questions were asked via email to the leaders of the Ontario PC, Ontario Liberal, Ontario NDP and Green Party of Ontario:

1)     Ontario's beekeeping industry has suffered through the loss of thousands of hives in both 2012 and 2013 that Health Canada has confirmed were the result of exposure to neonicotinoid pesticides in soy and corn planting. Should you be elected to lead the Government of Ontario, would you support the Ontario Beekeepers' Association's call for an immediate moratorium on the sale of the neonicotinoid treated seeds that are killing our bees?

2)     Ontario is suffering a serious decline in the population of the insect pollinators we rely on for our locally grown foods as the result of the indiscriminate use of neonicotinoid pesticides. Health Canada and other studies have shown significant amounts of persistent neonicotinoid pesticides in water and soil samples across Ontario. If elected, will your party declare this an urgent environmental problem?