Queen Rearing Workshop in Burgessville Part 1

June 19, 2013

On Sunday, June 9 I took part in a queen rearing workshop put on by the Ontario Beekeepers Association.  It took place in Burgessville south of Woodstock at John Blyderveen's beeyard.  I got Queen Olivia from him.

I carpooled with 3 other beekeepers from London and the first thing one of them said as she got into the truck was, " Isn't this going to be great?  We can talk about bees all the way down and back and know that we are not boring anyone!"  It was true...we talked bees all the way there.  How fun is that?

John has a business, Oxford Honey and Supplies.  He sells supplies to beekeepers, extracts and bottles honey and also has his own bees.  He builds nucs with imported bees from Australia and sells them. This season he has been struggling as so many of his bees are perishing due to the neonicotinoid pesticide that is being used to pre-treat the corn in the fields around his farm.  He welcomed 24 beekeepers into his beeyard regardless of these losses and let us tear his beehives apart and put them back together multiple times.  Here is a shot of some of his hives he keeps behind the farm house.

John's Bee yard

We registered and were given blue or red name tags to put us into two teams for learning.  I was in the red team...Go Red!  First we did some classroom learning about queen and drone biology, queen rearing equipment, record keeping, timing and other methods of queen rearing.

You may remember from former posts that any larva has the potential of becoming a queen if it is  fed a large amount of royal jelly for a longer period of time by the nurse bees.  You also might remember that the hive has only one queen and she has to go out of the hive to mate with 10-20 drones.  This takes place over 2-3 days.  She then is able to lay 1000-1500 eggs per day and some of them will be drone eggs and most will be worker eggs.  

So we were reminded of all of this in the class. We learned that honey bees will rear queens when the colony is queenless, or the present queen is being replaced or the colony is preparing to swarm.  When these circumstances are in play, the nurse bees will choose a larva that is 1 day old and start feeding it royal jelly.  They will also build out the cell to be able to hold a queen, which is called a queen cup.  

We were there to learn how to produce the queens ourselves.  We learned how to find  a 1 day old larva, pick it out of the cell with a paint brush or Chinese grafting tool, and move it to a  queen cup made of wax or plastic.  I was terrible at it and my grafts certainly all perished.  The larva needs to be put in the queen cup in exactly the same position since its breathing holes are only on the top and it would drown if put in upside down.  A frame of queen cups can hold as many as 45 queen cups.  Here is a picture of a strip of queen cups and a frame of brood we were grafting from.   Next is a frame that  holds the strips of queen cups.

Queen cups for grafting--yellows one are wax, grey ones are plastic

Day 0:  The frame of queen cups is then put into the centre of an empty box with the following frames:

1. Honey & pollen

2. Empty foundation

3. Capped brood

4. Capped brood

5. Pollen

6. The frame of grafted larvae

7. Open Larva

8. Capped brood

9. Capped brood

10. Frame feeder full of 50% syrup

Queen cup frame in cell starter

This is a queenless hive which means the worker bees will be motivated to create queens.  This is called the queenless cell starter.

(Always check all the frames for natural queen cells since that could upset the whole idea...also make sure there is no queen!)  Lots of bees are needed for this operation.  Once this box is set up, the workers will  start drawing out the queen cups to create the large queen cells needed for the queen larvae to grow.  They feed the larvae royal jelly the whole time.

Day 2:  The box is placed on top of a hive that is queen-right (has a healthy queen).  A queen excluder is place between the two boxes to separate the queen from the hive on the bottom and our queen builder.  This is called the queen-right cell finisher.  The workers are spurred on to finish off the queen cells and capping them by knowing that they have a queen and will prepare for swarming behaviour. 

Day 10:  Brush the bees gently off the cells and move each queen cell carefully to a nuc (4 frame hive) or a mini mating box...a tiny hive.  A pheremone strip is added to the tiny hives to encourage the workers to remain in the nuc. 

Pheremone strip

The queen cell is attached to the wax comb by making an indent int the wax and then gently adding the cell.

Mini Mating box---tiny hive!

Queen cell added to comb in mating hive.

Add two cups of bees to mating hive...and do not stir.

Day 12:  The virgin queen emerges from the queen cell.

Day 13 - 17:  The virgin queen grows and prepares for her maiden flights.  It must be sunny, above 18 degrees Celsius and not very windy.

Day 17 - 20:  The virgin queen is mated by 10-20 drones by flying to areas where drones are hanging around waiting for virgins.  If many queens are being raised in the bee yard, the bee keeper will make sure that many drones are being raised as well.

Too many pictures for one post so Part 2 will tell you what happens next!  See you.

A Series of Related Bee Events

Thursday June 27, 2013

In the middle of a meeting at work, I got a call from Bill letting me know that there was a very large swarm in the top of our Manitoba maple...very high up.  I suggested he set up a bait hive on top of a ladder to see if we could entice them into it.

Bait hive on top of ladder

All day Thursday, she stayed up in the tree.  It was rainy all day Friday.  I wrote John the beekeeper to see if he could tell me how long the bees could survive in a rainstorm out in the open.  He wrote me back to let me know that a swarm outside could last 4-5 days.  In fact, it is sometimes easier to entice the swarm into a box in inclement weather.  I rubbed lemon grass on the box and left some in the opening hoping that she could not resist it.  At this point I had no idea where this swarm was from though logic would  say that it must be one of my hives...likely Queen Mab.  My sister was convinced that the swarm was Queen Maggie coming back!  We crossed our fingers.

Saturday was still grey but starting to clear and she was still up in the tree.  Bill and I were very busy that day since we were part of a local garden crawl (much like a pub crawl  including lovely drinks at each garden) and were hosting the bbq later that day.  I had my camera with me all morning in case something happened with the swarm.  Nothing.  Nothing that is until Bill and I were completely immersed in setting up tables and chairs.  During that extremely short period of time, the swarm decided to take off.  What an anti-climax!

We shrugged, took down the bait hive and had a lovely garden party.

PS:  We did catch a cat though! :)

Smokey climbed the ladder to entertain us

Monday July 1, 2013

Happy Canada Day!

I went into Queen Mab to see what had happened and if that swarm on the weekend was her.  What I found was a so-so strong hive with at least 8 capped queen cells.  No Queen Mab to be found.  I really should have gotten a puppy!  Sigh.

Capped queen cells

Queen Mab laid the eggs in the queen cups so that the hive would still have a queen after she left with half of the hive.  The workers fed the larvae with royal jelly for the entire time until they capped the cell.

This swarm was so unexpected since the hive was young but they were extremely healthy and built comb super fast on the open frames.

I wrote Dave and John for advice and to see if they had any mated queens for sale.  Neither of them had any queens and they both said to just let the hive alone to hatch its own queen naturally.

Tuesday July 2, 2013

I got scared by the Queen Mab story so I thought I'd better go into Queen Olivia this morning.  She is very, very strong.  She has lots of honey stored in the top box.  I found her majesty very easily and I didn't find any sign of queen cells or queen cups on any of the frames.  Yippee!

I have decided to do an experiment and have started a third small hive with a couple of frames of honey and brood from Queen Olivia and a frame of brood with 3 queen cells from Queen Mab.  It will be very interesting to see how this plays out.  I closed up Olivia and added another box on top for honey storage.

In case you are wondering what the timetable for these queen cells to move on to being queens in their own right, here you are:

In 7 days from today the queens should emerge.  The queen will strengthen, put her make up on and then head out to be fertilized by 10-20 drones.  She will then come back to the hive and start laying eggs.  That is all she will do for the rest of her life ( 3-5 years) unless she gets sick or accidentally dies...or she swarms due to a unaware beekeeper taking care of her.

In 21-28 days from today I should be seeing eggs in the comb.  I am going to go into both hives with queen cells next Tuesday to see if they have hatched and to see which one got the crown.  The first queen to hatch will go to all the other cells and kill the occupants.  If they hatch at the same time, they will have a duel to the death.  The queen uses her stinger in this duel and she is capable of stinging multiple times.  I am told that she will only use her stinger in this fight and not for stinging humans.  I haven't tested that theory...don't plan on it actually...she is much bigger than a worker!

It seems that beekeeping this season is very dramatic.  Makes for a more interesting blog.

I am on holidays now so gardening and beekeeping are my focus these days...and sleeping in.

Campanula with yellow lilies

Honey bee at sage blossoms

Happy summer!

Catching the Grand Swarm!

June 20, 2013

It was the day before the Equinox so of course, something epic should take place!

Some of you may know that the restaurant next to the theatre has two beehives on its roof.  This restaurant specializes in local foods and does a honey festival in the fall.  I have always been interested in these hives and coincidentally, I had just met the beekeeper, Albert the weekend before.

The afternoon of June 20 I was out in the parking lot with a co-worker when we looked up and saw thousands of bees swirling above us!  A swarm was in motion and clearly from one of the hives on the roof behind us.  I followed them across the lot and almost immediately they all settled on a tiny tree at the edge of the lot.

Swarming bees

Cluster on the tree trunk

I immediately texted this photo to my husband, Bill and his answer was, "...do you want me to bring a box down?" I went to the restaurant to let them know what was going on and we called Albert to talk to him.  He was too far away to do anything about it and let me know that if could capture them, they were mine!  I also wrote Bob, the Chair of the local Beekeeping Association.  He wished me luck and said that if I caught them, he would buy them from me.  

Bill came down with a box, frames, my bee suit, a brush...but no gloves!  The bees are docile when they are swarming...right?  Yes, of course they are but if you accidentally bump into their stinger end, they still will react...and it still hurts when it happens.  I know.

This swarm was not an easy one to capture...no large mass hanging from a convenient branch that could be shaken into a box.  These bees were up against the trunk and had to be slowly brushed into the box.  They came away in huge clumps and I brushed and hoped I would get the queen and that I wouldn't damage her.  There were thousands of bees!  IT WAS EPIC!  My co-workers were watching from a safe distance.  Bill was being official photographer.

Brushing the bees into the box

I slowly brushed and finally the box was pretty full and the tree was almost empty.

Box full of bees

We moved the box to the truck and the rest of the bees followed.  I started putting frames in.  I only got 6 in and then we put the lid on. I sent Bill home with a box of bees and went back to work  Bill put the box in the beeyard.  I knew I had to go into them as soon as possible to add the rest of the frames and to give them another box so this healthy hive would have enough room.

The next day I set up a bottom and extra box and then set my new hive on top.  I then opened her up.  They had already started to build comb in the space left in the box beside the frames...remember a box holds 10 frames and I had only put in 6.  The comb they were building was sideways!

Sideways cob built in the empty space

Close up of sideways comb

I broke off this new comb, added the extra 4 frames and then shook all the bees from the temporary lid into the hive.  I then added the lid and thought...a perfect home!

Shaking the bees into the hive.

We christened her Queen Maggie in honour of the famous British actress, Maggie Smith who has probably played every Queen onstage.  We then left her to her own devices.  On Friday she was very busy.  I worked all day Saturday and during the day, Bill mentioned that Queen Maggie was very quiet.  On Sunday I finally had the opportunity to check the bees out myself.It was very, very quiet...too quiet for such a large colony so I opened her up.

Gone!  Queen Maggie had flown the coop with all her subjects...her wanderlust had not been appeased apparently.  So she is out there somewhere making a "better" home and I am back to 2 hives again.

It's like adopting a stray cat, giving it all its shots and a cosy bed only to have it wander off to the neighbour's house!

The same thing happened to the Chair of our Beekeeping Association so I don't feel so-o-o bad...but still...sheesh.

PS:  Albert, the original owner of the bees says that I should have put a frame of brood from another hive with the swarm and then they wouldn't have left because they would have taken care of the brood.  Next time.  :)

Introducing Queen Olivia!

June 12, 2913

I have a name for my Australian Queen!  She has been christened Queen Olivia.  Just in case you think she is named after our dog, Olive you would be wrong.   I opened her up for the first time this afternoon and actually managed to find the queen.  Here she is with her retinue.

Queen Olivia...can't miss her right in the middle!

It was very exciting to find her but it was very easy since there are not that many bees in this hive yet.  In this next picture you will see that I have become braver in the bee yard as I have no gloves on!

Look!  Bare hands!

I opened up Queen Mab as well and found that the bees had been building a lot, but all in the second box,  I decided to switch the boxes to get them to fill in the other one.   Perhaps the top opening I have has made them like being upstairs better than downstairs.

New comb being built

Drone brood and capped honey

My next posting will be about the wonderful Queen Rearing Workshop I attended on the weekend but it will be fairly dense and educational, so I thought I'd just give you a few pictures of the two hives to let you know things are going well in the bee yard.  

My new Australian bee hive

June 4, 2013

Two beehives in my beeyard!

We picked up hive #2  from John in Burgessville on June 1 in the morning.  The queen is an Australian-Italian bee.  John has been having a tough time with the pesticides affecting his bees but my hive seems extremely healthy.  The bees are already building comb on the open frames that I provided to John.  The centre frames in the hive are plastic foundation and are completely covered in capped brood.

As soon as we got home, I opened the hive to add another box of frames with some capped honey to keep them fed.  This was timely since it rained and rained over the weekend and was so cold the bees stayed home.   All this hive needs now is a name.

I am very happy to have  2 hives in the beeyard again.  The Australian's workers are very orange whereas Queen Mab's workers are very black...maybe Russian genes.  It will be very interesting to see the difference in the two hives.

Queen Mab's worker--very dark stripes

Australian worker--orange stripes

I walk around the property to see all the lush growth that the rain has brought and I leave you with a few images.  Happy spring!

Backlit Solomon seal

Healthy hostas with allium

Weigela in the ferns

The Best Bee Watering Hole in Town

May 28, 2013

My good friend Shawn has named my first bee hive of 2013.  Introducing Queen Mab!  A lovely nod to Shakespeare.

Some of you may remember my frustration with the bees and water over the last two seasons.  No matter how beautiful the watering hole was (in my opinion), the bees insisted on finding their water elsewhere...probably in some poor child's swimming pool!  This year I was determined to keep the bees happy and drinking at home :).  I did notice that the bees tended to congregate at a cement rhubarb leaf bird bath last year. They loved the veins since they could drink from them without getting the rest of their bodies wet.  It happened that I had a round cement rhubarb leaf  exactly the same size of the water barrel that we had bought for the bees.  The water is pumped up over some rocks onto the leaf.  It pools into the centre of the leaf and then runs through the veins back into the barrel.  The bees love it!

Cement rhubarb leaf fits exactly into the barrel

 There are dozens of bees on this watering hole constantly.  It makes me smile to see them.

The veins of the leaf are perfect watering areas for the bees

So the bees have water.  They are collecting pollen and nectar from the flowering trees.  The bees are very busy and happy. It's a good start.

New bees, new hope

May 22, 2013

Me with my first hive of 2013

I received my new bees from Dave Gale last night!  He breeds his own queens so this is an Ontario queen.  Genetically a bit of Buckfast, an English bee and whatever else flies around his home on the east edge of London.   It looks like a very healthy hive.

The pick up of this hive was slightly bitter sweet as Dave has lost 100 hives in the two weeks since I dropped off my box to be filled.  His hives that are situated at his home are fine due to "pesticide-free" London but most of his hives are in farm country where the fields are being planted.  His bees probably came in contact with the famous and terrible pesticides we have all been hearing about, neonicitinoids.  He still honoured our deal for a nuc and so I have his queen and bees and plan on taking very good care of them.  Dave has been getting calls from as far away as Manitoba and Michigan from hopeful beekeepers looking for healthy queens since everyone is having trouble this spring.

I am still waiting for my second hive which will come from John Van Blyderveen in Burgessville.  He has imported his queens from Australia but he is also struggling with a major loss of his bees...probably 100 hives as well.  It is a tough time for beekeepers and their bees if they are in the country.  Ironically, urban bees might have a better chance of it.

I am excited to start beekeeping again.  I will try to beekeep naturally, without chemicals.  I will feed the bees with capped honey on frames that I saved from last year and use open frames to let the bees build cells their own size and not what humans have prescribed.  There's my mantra.  This blog will let you know how I do.

Happy Spring to everyone!

PS:  My Ontario queen needs a name and when the Australian queen arrives, she will too.  Send me your suggestions please!