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Offline labradorfarms

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Queen Bee question
« on: December 26, 2013, 09:54:40 pm »
Ok I understand to Queen can fly before and during mating! Once she is fertilized and starts laying can she still fly? Someone told me the the Queen cant fly after laying?

Moots

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Re: Queen Bee question
« Reply #1 on: December 26, 2013, 10:05:57 pm »
She needs to get to flying weight.  :-D

My understanding is when she in full on laying queen mode, she can't.  If she being prepped to swarm, they will put her on a diet so she'll lean down and can fly.

Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: Queen Bee question
« Reply #2 on: December 26, 2013, 11:46:37 pm »
Moots,
You need to tell that to some of my egg laying queens. They didn't get the message.  :-D They can fly, probably not long distances like they need to for swarming but they can fly and do.
I had one queen take off twice during one inspection. Thought she was gone but she ended up back in the box before I closed it back up. I was surprised and happy.
Jim
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Ben Franklin

Moots

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Re: Queen Bee question
« Reply #3 on: December 27, 2013, 12:01:19 am »
Jim,
LOL!  Yeah, I guess it would have been more appropriate to say that "sometimes" they can't fly, I shouldn't have made it sound like an absolute.  Besides, I don't think any "absolutes" exist in beekeeping... :laugh:

Offline BeeDog

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Re: Queen Bee question
« Reply #4 on: December 27, 2013, 07:07:10 am »
My mated queen can actually fly,  :evil: I had an experience once where I made a split from a 20+ framer hive, I made sure that the queen is in the original hive. Just as I was placing my new split standard box hive to its new location around 40 meters from the original hive. I saw the old queen flying and went straight inside the new hive. So instead introducing a new queen to my supposed to be new hive. I introduced a new queen to the original hive. The split went well, but up to now I wonder why the queen left her original hive and went to the new split hive?
It is highly recommend that split be done with only strong healthy hives that have at least two Brood Chambers with Brood in all stages of development. Frames with capped Brood should be split evenly between the two hives.

Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: Queen Bee question
« Reply #5 on: December 27, 2013, 07:56:14 am »
Moots,
The real problem is that the bees can't read the rules.  :-D

Beedog,
She did you a favor. Last year, I made 12 splits, took from 3 to 6 frames from every hive. I only moved one queen to the new nuc. Hives were all real strong and I was having a hard time finding the queens. During the next 4 weeks, we had several cold snaps. Half of the nucs had there queens cells chilled and I had to add new frames of larvae so that they could make new queens. If I had moved all of the queens, the stronger original hives probably would not have had this problem.
Three weeks later while I had the original hives on gallberry for honey production I had several hives swarm right when I needed them producing honey. That would not have happened if I had moved the queens.
Jim
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Ben Franklin

 

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