Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: contactme_11 on July 30, 2009, 04:36:25 pm
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It is almost the start of august. Is it too late in the year to risk letting a hive start making a new queen on their own? I'm talking about a hive that has plenty of stores but no visible eggs or brood, So I'll have to give them a frame to work.
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I hope not! My hive just swarmed, and I am going to let the queen cells hatch. Here in Ohio, we still have a lot of bloom time left for the bees to build up their winter stores. I'm hoping the new queen will get busy right away! May have to feed them a bit heavier come fall if they are lagging behind. Best of luck to you!
Alan
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It is almost the start of august. Is it too late in the year to risk letting a hive start making a new queen on their own? I'm talking about a hive that has plenty of stores but no visible eggs or brood, So I'll have to give them a frame to work.
If you have no eggs or brood you better let them build one. No eggs and brood means they are queenless and you will lose the whole hive soon. No it's never to late.
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It takes about a month to raise a queen and have her start laying. There needs to be drones available for her to mate with (which shouldn't be a problem). But you also have to have enough time for her to lay and raise winter bees, so depending on the weather, you may be cutting it close. I'm not a proponent of emergency queens to begin with, but with all the rain we have been having here in the Northeast, I have seen a higher rate than normal of queens not returning from mating flights. So there is the possibility you will still be queenless in September.
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If you have no eggs or brood you better let them build one.
or buy one
No eggs and brood means they are queenless
duh
and you will lose the whole hive soon.
or you are doing 2 huge trapouts that are yielding way more bees and stores than you planed and you just need a lot of queens.
No it's never to late.
Sometimes it is. Beekeeping is very different in different areas of the country. That's why I asked. People shouldn't comment about things they don't know about.
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If you have no eggs or brood you better let them build one.
or buy one
No eggs and brood means they are queenless
duh
and you will lose the whole hive soon.
or you are doing 2 huge trapouts that are yielding way more bees and stores than you planed and you just need a lot of queens.
No it's never to late.
Sometimes it is. Beekeeping is very different in different areas of the country. That's why I asked. People shouldn't comment about things they don't know about.
Wow Contactme_11, I'm glad I did not offer you any advice. I suspect that Joelel will keep his posts to himself from now on since I haven't seen a good scolding like that since about 3rd grade.
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you'll get lots of advice to a question. you are free to take it or not. of course, if you are going to slam people who give you the wrong advice, or advice that does not fit your needs....you might end up with none.
joelel may have a lot to learn, but he is participating and that is part of learning.
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If you have no eggs or brood you better let them build one.
or buy one
No eggs and brood means they are queenless
duh
and you will lose the whole hive soon.
or you are doing 2 huge trapouts that are yielding way more bees and stores than you planed and you just need a lot of queens.
No it's never to late.
Sometimes it is. Beekeeping is very different in different areas of the country. That's why I asked. People shouldn't comment about things they don't know about.
Ignor list
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If you have no eggs or brood you better let them build one.
or buy one
No eggs and brood means they are queenless
duh
and you will lose the whole hive soon.
or you are doing 2 huge trapouts that are yielding way more bees and stores than you planed and you just need a lot of queens.
No it's never to late.
Sometimes it is. Beekeeping is very different in different areas of the country. That's why I asked. People shouldn't comment about things they don't know about.
Wow Contactme_11, I'm glad I did not offer you any advice. I suspect that Joelel will keep his posts to himself from now on since I haven't seen a good scolding like that since about 3rd grade.
The thing is he never said anything about buying one. OH well ignor list.
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OK everyone take a deep breathe now.
Yes it is important for people to give advice. But it is also dangerous for someone with little experience to give wrong advice. There are many new beekeepers on here, and it is important for them to participate so it isn't the same people having to answer the same questions over and over. But if you have no personal experience with the methods you suggest, it is also key that you add a disclaimer to warn the requester. Something like, "I've never done it this way, but here is why I think it would work" or "I'm a new beekeeper, but from what I have learned I think...."
Just giving broad motherhood statements, that are flat out wrong, with no justification is not being helpful. It is easy to make such statements when your bees are not at risk. But if you got burned by someones wrong advice, you would not be very happy.
So let's make our knowledge level clear when commenting on things we have no personal experience with.
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It takes about a month to raise a queen and have her start laying. There needs to be drones available for her to mate with (which shouldn't be a problem). But you also have to have enough time for her to lay and raise winter bees, so depending on the weather, you may be cutting it close. I'm not a proponent of emergency queens to begin with, but with all the rain we have been having here in the Northeast, I have seen a higher rate than normal of queens not returning from mating flights. So there is the possibility you will still be queenless in September.
contactme_11 .......
I live in Athol, Ma. IMO I would buy a queen this time of year
BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)
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I have been keeping bees in Athol MA. for 50+ years
This is advise from someone 40 mi north of you. You may find someone closer I hope so.
http://hampden-county-beekeepers.org/
BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)
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I believe you need Local advise !
It is really impossible I believe, for any one 500, or 1000 + miles away to give particular instructions on how to manage your bees.
What is your elevation, tempreature zone, what dates do your local seasons begin & end ?
These are a few of the things I think are needed before anyone should sprout off with " advice "
Take any and all advice on on the inter-net forums with a grain or two of salt, their is very good info. given and lots of bad.
Good Luck
Bee-Bop
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So let's make our knowledge level clear when commenting on things we have no personal experience with.
Thanks for saying this! I was starting to annoy myself with how often I started a response with something along the lines of, "I have very little experience, I'm a totally new beek, etc." :-P
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Thanks Robo, my feelings exactly. I really didn't mean to blast this guy, I just needed advise from someone (possibly Northeast) who could really help. Not generic info I could find in a book.
OK everyone take a deep breathe now.
Yes it is important for people to give advice. But it is also dangerous for someone with little experience to give wrong advice. There are many new beekeepers on here, and it is important for them to participate so it isn't the same people having to answer the same questions over and over. But if you have no personal experience with the methods you suggest, it is also key that you add a disclaimer to warn the requester. Something like, "I've never done it this way, but here is why I think it would work" or "I'm a new beekeeper, but from what I have learned I think...."
Just giving broad motherhood statements, that are flat out wrong, with no justification is not being helpful. It is easy to make such statements when your bees are not at risk. But if you got burned by someones wrong advice, you would not be very happy.
So let's make our knowledge level clear when commenting on things we have no personal experience with.
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Sorry Joelel. Didn't mean to take out my frustrations on you.
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Sorry Joelel. Didn't mean to take out my frustrations on you.
No problem ,apology accepted.
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X:X X:X X:X X:X
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Hey, that's cool. And they didn't have to have a beer with the President. I love Beeks.
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Group Huuuuggggg :-* :-D
But you can't have my Bud Light ;)!!!
It's great to see things settle in a nice way ---- really.
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(http://planetsmilies.net/vomit-smiley-17155.gif) (http://planetsmilies.net)
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(http://planetsmilies.net/vomit-smiley-17155.gif) (http://planetsmilies.net)
Wow...I can tell that you are a cold hearted conservative!! (any room at that puke station, I'm gonna need it too!! :-D)
I'm in michigan and thinking of splitting my hives. Cutting it close? Maybe a bit. Want to spend $60 on queens? Nope. You still have time if you don't want to drop the moolah.
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So a question about queenlessness late in the season: Is this common? I have had various packages go queenless, but it has been in the early season. Are hives at risk to go queenless year round? If so, what are the causes if we know? If one were to get a queen this late, could heavy feeding keep them through the winter?
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So a question about queenlessness late in the season: Is this common? I have had various packages go queenless, but it has been in the early season. Are hives at risk to go queenless year round? If so, what are the causes if we know? If one were to get a queen this late, could heavy feeding keep them through the winter?
Fall queen loss is not uncommon. My personal feeling is that the real quality of a queen does not show up until fall/winter, which by the way is the worse time to have them fail. I also believe that a lot of winter failures that are blamed on "winter weather" are really queen failures. I can only speak for myself, but since I have been keeping only well feed grafted and swarm queens winter losses are less than when I tolerated emergency queens. Ideally you want your new queen to go through 3 or so brood cycles before winter, so figure 2 months before the last fall brod rearing to introduce a new queen.
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Didn't a recent article in Bee culture recommend re queening in the late summer early fall for the purpose of out breeding the mites?Maybe letting them make a queen is a push,but if you can buy a queen it may all be well.If it does requeen itself and the population is light,be sure to shrink the colony to a size that can keep itself warm over the winter.Or do a combine with another hive.