Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: slacker361 on January 22, 2011, 10:16:05 am
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Ok i think I might be wrapping my head around some of this. Like the NUC
If I would like to start a new hive , I could use a nuc, take some frames of uncapped brood, and place them in a nuc with bees and some stores. The bees will realize no queen is in there, and start a new queen. Then I could have a new hive. This is a use for a nuc , right?
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Yes, that would be one. The reduced space in the NUC would be easier to defend with the reduced quantity of bees while they are raising a new queen. They are also easier to transport.
Steve
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""take some frames of uncapped brood,""
The larva must be 3 days old or younger. I would be sure there were eggs in the frame, just to be sure they had the youngest larva to begin with.
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Ideally, a frame w/ open and closed brood, even some eggs would be great :) with all the nurse bees that are on them and some more if you can spare.
thomas
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i get eggs also. it gives them a couple days to start multiple queen cells and choose the best. more options. better queens. some capped brood means you'll get more young bees in to keep house and still have foragers.
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Now this was something I hadn't done before to produce a new queen, but when my hive in town went queenless, the beek gave me a frame of brood and eggs, and bent back the walls of 4 or 5 cells that had eggs and preferably royal jelly too, to enlarge the cells. The hive had no problem producing a queen.
I don't think I'll ever learn all the tricks of beekeeping in a lifetime. It's amazing how many things I keep learning and how many mistakes I keep making.
Lone
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and bent back the walls of 4 or 5 cells that had eggs and preferably royal jelly too, to enlarge the cells.
Lone
That's a clever trick. I don't think it's necessary if the comb is young and soft, but with old comb it could make a difference.
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Ok i think I might be wrapping my head around some of this. Like the NUC
If I would like to start a new hive , I could use a nuc, take some frames of uncapped brood, and place them in a nuc with bees and some stores. The bees will realize no queen is in there, and start a new queen. Then I could have a new hive. This is a use for a nuc , right?
Make sure that before you move any frames you find the queen and leave her behind in the original hive. If you are taking day old eggs she is probably close by.
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Ok i think I might be wrapping my head around some of this. Like the NUC
If I would like to start a new hive , I could use a nuc, take some frames of uncapped brood, and place them in a nuc with bees and some stores. The bees will realize no queen is in there, and start a new queen. Then I could have a new hive. This is a use for a nuc , right?
If you are content with emergency queens.
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Ok i think I might be wrapping my head around some of this. Like the NUC
If I would like to start a new hive , I could use a nuc, take some frames of uncapped brood, and place them in a nuc with bees and some stores. The bees will realize no queen is in there, and start a new queen. Then I could have a new hive. This is a use for a nuc , right?
If you are content with emergency queens.
But if it is a good strong hive that you do this with, then wouldnt the queen be of good stock?
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Ok i think I might be wrapping my head around some of this. Like the NUC
If I would like to start a new hive , I could use a nuc, take some frames of uncapped brood, and place them in a nuc with bees and some stores. The bees will realize no queen is in there, and start a new queen. Then I could have a new hive. This is a use for a nuc , right?
If you are content with emergency queens.
But if it is a good strong hive that you do this with, then wouldnt the queen be of good stock?
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But if it is a good strong hive that you do this with, then wouldnt the queen be of good stock?
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Good strong queens are unusually made during a good honeyflow. So an emergency queen during a dearth would be suspect. The odds would be against her.
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But if it is a good strong hive that you do this with, then wouldnt the queen be of good stock?
Good strong queens are unusually made during a good honeyflow. So an emergency queen during a dearth would be suspect. The odds would be against her.
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ahha good info to know thanks
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however, the bees will use the best of the resources to make their queen. if your hive is well stocked with food and pollen, a dearth should not impact. lack of genetic diversity from limited drone supply would worry me more. robo doesn't like home made queens :-D
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Hey, Robo, send me all yours. I like emergency queens when selected by the beek. Good supplies, good flow, strong genetics, strong colony.
I'll tak'em all day.
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Hey, Robo, send me all yours. I like emergency queens when selected by the beek. Good supplies, good flow, strong genetics, strong colony.
I'll tak'em all day.
Maybe in the south where winter are weak, mediocre queens can survive. Real winters separate the good from the bad. I still believe a large portion of winter losses are due to poor queens and not "weather".
http://robo.bushkillfarms.com/can-you-afford-emergency-queens/ (http://robo.bushkillfarms.com/can-you-afford-emergency-queens/)
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however, the bees will use the best of the resources to make their queen.
Yup, even drone eggs if that is the best they have.
"It's not just good, its good enough!"
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Any queen reared as a result of human interference with eggs from the brood nes may be suspect, IMO. In 50+ years of beekeeping I still can't tell a good egg from a bad egg. My bet is that the bees are much more in tune with what constitutes a good egg over a bad egg than I am. Given a quantity of eggs from which to choose to rear a queen from I will put my money on the expertise of the bees over that of the human under any given set of conditions.
It is true that the best queens come from hives with lots of bees, large brood nests, in the midst of a honey flow, but that is the time of maximum egg production by the queen so the ratio of superior eggs to poor eggs still gives a large selection. As the time of year and weather conditions change so does the size of the brood chamber and, hence, the ratio of superior eggs to good and poor eggs decreases. Come drought or dearth, or new queenn lost on mating flights, conditions a the selection of acceptable eggs from which to rear a replacement queen can range from difficult to non-existant, even for the bees. But they will still try.
But, the premise remains that the bees, under any given set of circumstances, will choose a better candidate egg than a human can, except but sheer dumb luck.
As a result I will accept a queen the bees rear at their own initiative when they choose to rear one with the qualifier that that queen will be replaced once conditions for optimum egg selection exist, and that selection will come from the brood nest of my best , by all measureable or desirable, standards.
When I start my queen rearing in my queen castles, I choose to prime it with brood frames from by best 2 or 3 hives. This keeps the divirsity of genetics alive with in the hive and will usually reult in quality candidates from each of the source hives.
From the queen castle I can then pull new queens, add a few frames of bees from another hive and have an established nuc or hive with little effort. Since I use a 4 section 12 frame queen castle (13 when used as a single hive) It is easy to pull the individual sections out of the castle and place in nucs for finishing as hives.
In other words, all of my queens a reared using queens reared from eggs choosen by the bees themsleves and I have nice calm hives albit of a muttified heritage.
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What nucs are good for:
http://bushfarms.com/beesnucs.htm#goodfor (http://bushfarms.com/beesnucs.htm#goodfor)
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robo, i was referring to the resources used to raise the queen. not the egg. BTW...i have real winters. other than my moment of weakness year before last, i have not purchased a queen in over 5 years. guess which queen i lost year before last? :-D
this is one of those thing that people will have to try, to evaluate. in my case, i have gone to the trouble of digging bees out of walls, etc. why would i buy queens and lose the genetics of the (hopefully) survivor stock? + i know that there are lots of resources in my area for genetic diversity and proper fertilization of my queens.
it's the dang swallows that do me in :evil:
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Hey, Robo, send me all yours. I like emergency queens when selected by the beek. Good supplies, good flow, strong genetics, strong colony.
I'll tak'em all day.
I agree with this. One reason emergency queens may be inferior is if there is no fresh comb around. If the bees have a hard time reshaping the queen cell from an old stiff cell with reduced volume due to lots of old cocoons, then nutrition to the queen may suffer.
If there is ample fresh comb, plenty of pollen and honey around and a strong colony to take care of the larvae, it's not really that much of an emergency to start with. :-D
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Kathy,
I am by no means promoting the purchase of commercial queens, quite the contrary. All my stock now is from feral survivor which I produce queens from. I am a strong proponent of using local acclimated stock and encourage folks to rear their own queens.
My issue is with the walk-away method of queen rearing. Just because bees can produce a queen when forced to does not mean that it will be a quality queen, unless a bunch of other conditions are met. If you are going to go through the trouble to make sure the condition are optimal, why let them expend the energy and resources to produce and raise a handful or more cells only to let the first queen destroy the other cells, or have queens fight to the death and perhaps cause injury to the survivor? Also, is that first queen really the best one? It most likely came from the oldest egg.
A lot of my thoughts and methods are derived from studying ferals. Supercedure does not happen in nature as much as we make it part of our "normal" beekeeping practices. I will also venture a guess that a large portion of the natural supercedures are not successful in the long term. Especially if you look at the survival rate of first year swarms where the majority of natural superceduring occurs.
Just my 2 cents.... Others have differing opinions, and some put more weight on the "free & easy" part of the walk-away.
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What nucs are good for:
http://bushfarms.com/beesnucs.htm#goodfor (http://bushfarms.com/beesnucs.htm#goodfor)
Michael You always have great stuff on your site... when are you going to put up how the sundance bottom trap works when collectin g and not collecting LOL :-D
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Since we are talking queens and quality what opinions do we have here of swarm cell queens? I had good success with them last summer. I liked the results better than the ones I bought, thats for sure. The main objection I read or hear is if you use swarm cells you are raising swarmy bees. Is there such a thing as a colony that grows huge or gets crowded (other than maybe a first year queen) not wanting to swarm? Why not use the swarm cells from the colonies that grow and produce so fast that they want to swarm? I feel that a queens raised by choice (not an emergency by graft or otherwise) has to be as high quality as they come. Since the movable frame hive has been invented we have not been able to select out swarming. And even if reduced if there has been great progress made then why have we not been able to make carnies that are not swarmier than italians? I dont see any reason not to make increase by simply taking advantage of the swarming inpulse, even crowding your best colonies to make increase. If you make weekly inspections, you should be able to catch most swarming before it happens and get great queens.
I plan on making as many splits and spare/replacement queens as possible from colonies that want to swarm this season. To heck with buying queens in summer that tend to get supercieded anyway.
Just my thoughts, how about yours?
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bee-nuts, Swarm cells make the absolute best queens in my opinion! Always, always take advantage by moving the "mother" queen with some brood/bees/stores to a new hive to create a "false swarm". If you simply move just the swarm cells to a new hive you risk leaving the mother colony queenless if they swarm anyway.
Scott
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bee-nuts, Swarm cells make the absolute best queens in my opinion! Always, always take advantage by moving the "mother" queen with some brood/bees/stores to a new hive to create a "false swarm". If you simply move just the swarm cells to a new hive you risk leaving the mother colony queenless if they swarm anyway.
Scott
That is exactly what I did. It also forced me to learn how to find the queen. I got pretty good at finding them by mid season (usually the second to the last frame you pull, LOL). I made five frame nucs with old queen, then one or two more with cells and moved them to another yard. I also left about half the bees and cells on original stand. My plan is to get some new blood here and there but make most of my increase from my own stock and whatever they mate with.
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and bent back the walls of 4 or 5 cells that had eggs and preferably royal jelly too, to enlarge the cells.
Lone
That's a clever trick. I don't think it's necessary if the comb is young and soft, but with old comb it could make a difference.
The idea behind this is that you can tell the bees which larvae to use (or at least hint!), and then they are more likely to use the ones you choose rather than raise emergency cells from too-old larvae.
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The idea behind this is that you can tell the bees which larvae to use (or at least hint!), and then they are more likely to use the ones you choose rather than raise emergency cells from too-old larvae.
Can this really work? Can a beek know more about the age and condition of available queen-candidate larvae than the bees do? Of course, the bees know if a larva has the same father as themselves and they probably know other facts that we don't. What can I know that the bees would not?
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What can I know that the bees would not?
That a viable queen can not be raised from a drone egg is one thing.
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That a viable queen can not be raised from a drone egg is one thing.
Oh no. Please tell me that is not true. :? Will they really try to use a drone egg when there are worker eggs available? Not that it does any harm as long as they also use some worker eggs, but still......
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Oh no. Please tell me that is not true. :? Will they really try to use a drone egg when there are worker eggs available?
I don't know about that, but they will use eggs from a laying worker to try and rear a queen.
Not that it does any harm as long as they also use some worker eggs, but still......
Are you sure about that? That is part of my concern with emergency queens. So they decide to make a queen out of an old egg, but that is OK as long as they make some from 3.5 day eggs? Guess what, that old egg queen, who may have been feed bee bread for a while or at least not copious amounts of royal jelly will be the first to hatch and rip open the younger (better) cells.
Everyone that is a proponent of emergency queens insist the bees will always pick the right age eggs. And if they occasionally don't, then what? I'm not convinced.
And yes, you can get a good emergency queen if you put a bunch of stipulations on your method, but if your going through all that effort, why not spend the little extra time and manage the cells and not waste all the bee effort and resources to end up with one queen. I believe it is fair to say that a lot of new beekeepers and hobbyist can't determine when there is a flow, so how can they know when to do a walk-away split even if they understand the important factors of doing splits.
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I find that a little suspicious; trying to raise queens from drone eggs! Why would they do that if they're given frames of worker brood? Must be some dumber bees than mine! :-D I've raised many, many queens from newly hatched larva by simply pulling down the bottom of the cell on a right-aged larva with a nail or ball point pen. It helps if using new yellow comb and pulling down cells around the perimeter, especially on the ends of the frame and across the bottom. I also make sure they have a good frame of pollen and a frame of uncapped honey right next to the brood frame. This is no different than grafting cells from that same frame of brood. I'll usually pull down 6-8 cells on a frame and sometimes they'll build all of them. You can also graft a larva into a plastic cell cup and just push the cell cup into a frame of brood, pointed down, and get nice cells, as long as they have plentiful resources to work with and lots of young bees. Now, if you're going to try to requeen with a nuc or hive that's been sitting queenless for a time and don't provide good larva, young bees, and pollen/honey then you can expect them to raise a poor quality queen. It's not rocket science by any stretch of the imagination!
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I don't know about that, but they will use eggs from a laying worker to try and rear a queen.
Robo, Seems like we have two different issues here.
Issue 1: Laying worker eggs. If there are laying workers, that means there has not been any open brood for quite a while. So using a drone egg from a laying worker would not matter since there were no worker eggs available anyway. I don't see that this necessarily implies anything about the ability of bees to make good decisions about which eggs to use IF there are any worker eggs to use.
Not that it does any harm as long as they also use some worker eggs, but still......
Are you sure about that? That is part of my concern with emergency queens. So they decide to make a queen out of an old egg, but that is OK as long as they make some from 3.5 day eggs?
Issue 2: Old eggs. No I don't think old eggs are ok. But I don't think using laying worker eggs when that's all they have means they will use old eggs.
Everyone that is a proponent of emergency queens insist the bees will always pick the right age eggs. And if they occasionally don't, then what? I'm not convinced.
Yes, I could go to great effort to isolate newly laid eggs, but why do that if there is no evidence the bees are likely to make a bad decision? Do you have some experiences that suggest the bees actually will use old eggs? This is probably just my ignorance showing.
I believe it is fair to say that a lot of new beekeepers and hobbyist can't determine when there is a flow, so how can they know when to do a walk-away split even if they understand the important factors of doing splits.
If there is new white comb with eggs in it AND the bees have good stores of honey and pollen, that would be a pretty good guide to a new beekeeper.
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I find that a little suspicious; trying to raise queens from drone eggs! Why would they do that if they're given frames of worker brood?
Your mixing apples and oranges. In a laying worker hive, there is no worker brood.
My point is in response to "The bees know which eggs to use". Obviously in a laying worker hive they don't realize they are wasting their effort. This raises the question in my mind if there are other instances where they might make not so good choices as well. I'll reiterate, emergency queens are not the norm in feral colonies despite many beekeepers efforts to make it a norm.
Issue 2: Old eggs. No I don't think old eggs are ok. But I don't think using laying worker eggs when that's all they have means they will use old eggs.
OK, that is your opinion and that is fine. Mine opinion is that since in certain situations (laying worker) they will use bad eggs, it is plausible they may use bad eggs in other situations as well.
Yes, I could go to great effort to isolate newly laid eggs, but why do that if there is no evidence the bees are likely to make a bad decision? Do you have some experiences that suggest the bees actually will use old eggs? This is probably just my ignorance showing.
Isn't using laying worker eggs a bad decision? Or do you consider that an exception and they make no other bad decisions? I have no experience that I can directly contribute to them using old eggs. But I do have experience of less queen failures after not relying on emergency queens. But I still go back to the fact that there are many variables to producing quality queens and unless conditions optimal you risk the chances of getting a queen with deficiencies. Based upon my experience, the fall/winter separate the good from the bad. Even a deficient queen can mimic a good queen when conditions are ideal (summer). It is my opinion that is why we see a lot of fall queen failures and I believe a lot of winter losses are wrongly attributed to weather or moisture when it reality it was due to queen failure.
If there is new white comb with eggs in it AND the bees have good stores of honey and pollen, that would be a pretty good guide to a new beekeeper.
Unfortunately the general impression from a lot of folks is you just take the queen away and they will make a new one.
"It's not just good, it is good enough"
http://robo.bushkillfarms.com/can-you-afford-emergency-queens/ (http://robo.bushkillfarms.com/can-you-afford-emergency-queens/)
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i think you also have to define "emergency". are we talking about yours, or the bees? if you are trying to save a failing hive and you have missed the fact that there has not been a queen for long enough that the hive developed laying workers, that's your emergency and fixing it is hardly worth the effort.
if you are are talking about a queen being superseded because the bees have realized she's not doing her thing, they are probably going to do a pretty good job of replacing her.
in between those two scenarios, are lots of variables for them, and you, fixing a queen problem.
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Isn't using laying worker eggs a bad decision? Or do you consider that an exception and they make no other bad decisions?
It's not really a decision at all. They don't choose a laying worker egg over some other egg. They are using what they have available.
I read once about how pollen carrying bees act after they go though a pollen trap. They have had the pollen stripped off but they still go to a pollen storage cell and move their legs as though scrapping off pollen and packing it in the cell. Bee behavior is a bunch of programmed sequences strung together. Bees are programmed to make queen cells when there is no queen. So they evaluate the eggs and use the best. Maybe they are using new drone eggs over old drone eggs? :-D
I'm just saying that they are not cognitive creatures who can say, "Oh, I would be wasting my time building a queen cell for a drone egg so I'll just go back to a nice honey frame and rest for awhile." They follow their programming as closely as conditions allow.
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if you are are talking about a queen being superseded because the bees have realized she's not doing her thing, they are probably going to do a pretty good job of replacing her.
Kathy,
I bought up the laying working example in the context of bees don't always use good eggs to make queen cells. You are correct, a laying worker hive is in much worse shape, at least in the short term :evil:
My concern with supercedure, is what is wrong with the queen they are getting rid of, and are you certain that issue will not be passed to her offspring or effect the quality of the egg her offspring will be raised from. Ever had a hive that went through supercedure after supercedure?
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Does anyone know how many workers out of a 30K member (for example) colony are actually in the business of queen cell making?
Gotta hand to you long-timers, especially when several of you are involved. The rest of us can learn lots if we're paying attention, so thanks :)
thomas
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Ever had a hive that went through supercedure after supercedure?
don't know about that, but i do have a hive that almost always has queen cells in it. not swarm cells. used to freak me out, but it has been the donor hive a number of times for replacements. from march though about July, i can count on it. i also know that the queen that's in there is not the little black one from 5 years ago. why do they do it? i don't know. it is a consistently strong hive so i'm not messing with it.
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don't know about that, but i do have a hive that almost always has queen cells in it. not swarm cells.
We have a hive like that. The queen is the product of a walk away split and does just fine. The bees build and cap queen cells and then tear them down again.
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"but i do have a hive that almost always has queen cells in it. not swarm cells"
Thats is a Russian characteristic, is it not?
"Gotta hand to you long-timers, especially when several of you are involved. The rest of us can learn lots if we're paying attention, so thanks"
Yeah what he said, keep the opinions flying. Its amaizing what you can learn when you just sit back and listen.
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Russian, Carnolian, and Caucasian bees all are prone to keeping queen cells/caps handy. It is not unusual for me to see as many as many a 6 queen caps on a single side of a frame. Next time I look they may all be gone. Building and tearing down queen caps (they ain't a cell until it has an egg) gives the bad girls work-release.
BTW, on the subject of queen cells from drone eggs: Any queen reared from a drone cell is going to be a Drag Queen.
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:lau: :lau:
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Kathy was referring to queen cells (I believe) not cups. My Italians usually have at least a few queen cups or play cups around. Russians though have queen cells present much of the time even if they have no intention of swarming according to to the literature I have read. That is what I was referring too. I am under the impression that kathy was referring to a colony that exhibits this behavior.
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i was. real queen cells. another interesting thing about this hive is that the cells will be the same age. there may be only a couple, or 1/2 a dozen, but they'll be the same age. it's a hive i'd love to have a camera in. i don't even remember where they came from, but i think they were a swarm from a bee tree.
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My first and only hive did that last year, scared me that I was doing something wrong, they never swarmed, and these cells kept comming and going . seem like the bee union was trying to send a message to the queen LOL