10 queens required

[crazy_bull]

Hi,

A bit of a short notice enquiry, if anyone has 10 queens available for this coming weekend please contact me via PM, with breed type if known and cost. I only want 2009 queens though.

Many thanks

C B

 

[burch]

try bikerstaffs when i last looked they had 40 plus queens available from the 4th of july

 

[BKF Admin]

CB, have you made some of your colonies queenless with your Nuc sales ?

 

[crazy_bull]

No Admin, not my main colonies, unfortunatley the last batch of queens that i bred to go in my Nuc's have not had the mating success that they should have, out of 30 nuc's set up only 23 were flat out laying during the weekend inspection. As the remaining are now without queens i thought it might be an idea to get some in there as my next batch of queens, if i do another won't be started till the weekend so won't be running till nearly August. It won't be the end of the world if i don't get any but will certainly speed things up.

C B

 

[crazy_bull]

try bikerstaffs when i last looked they had 40 plus queens available from the 4th of july

Have you a contact for the above?

Thanks

 

[BKF Admin]

Bickerstaffes,Liverpool.
TEL: 0151 526 4532

 

[BKF Admin]

No Admin, not my main colonies, unfortunatley the last batch of queens that i bred to go in my Nuc's have not had the mating success that they should have, out of 30 nuc's set up only 23 were flat out laying during the weekend inspection. As the remaining are now without queens i thought it might be an idea to get some in there as my next batch of queens, if i do another won't be started till the weekend so won't be running till nearly August. It won't be the end of the world if i don't get any but will certainly speed things up.

C B

When I need a queen and a colony has an uncapped QC I often take from a queenless colony that has a spare QC that is about to hatch to speed things up.

Is this normal practice ?

 

[jon]

I have certainly done it and it helps if you have a capped queen cell from a better colony.

 

[crazy_bull]

Bickerstaffes,Liverpool.
TEL: 0151 526 4532

Cheers Admin,

Normally i would use a sealed queen cell from another colony but i have artificially swarmed nearly all of my main colonies so they are (or should be) well off the swarming track, especially as they nectar is coming in flat out.

C B

 

[crazy_bull]

Bickerstaffes were very helpful thanks guys

 

[JCBrum]

i have artificially swarmed nearly all of my main colonies so they are (or should be) well off the swarming track, especially as they nectar is coming in flat out.

C B

For me, as a newbk without much experience, this comment is interesting.

Would some of you old hands say that artificial swarm procedure should be carried out as routine ? -

- and if so, when ?

JC.

 

[crazy_bull]

For me, as a newbk without much experience, this comment is interesting.

Would some of you old hands say that artificial swarm procedure should be carried out as routine ? -

- and if so, when ?

JC.

For me it is the only way i can successfully keep all my bees without loosing countless swarms each year as i am only on site with the bees at best once a week sometimes once a fortnight.

I tend to do it after OSR flow has finished and usually wait until they show signs of wanting to swarm.

I then remove the old queen with 2 frames of brood and 1 food into a nuc, i then destroy any queen cells that are in the original box, and introduce a cell from one of my 'parent' colonies. The following weekend i go through again to destroy any further cells that have developed leaving the 'choosen one'. That then hatches (hopefully) and then mates and heads that colony.

The nuc's are then either built up into full colonies ready for the main flow or sold.

This only applies to queens that are the previous years hatch, if they are older than that then they are squished and simply re-queened, unless they are super duper in which case they may be used to 'parent' future queen cells.


Hope that made some sense, (it does in my head)


C B

 

[jon]

Would some of you old hands say that artificial swarm procedure should be carried out as routine ? -

- and if so, when ?

JC.

I split immediately I find a queen cell or a queen cup with royal jelly but I have a slightly different routine.
I place a new brood box on the original site with a mixture of drawn comb and foundation. I then place the queen and the frame she is on in the middle of this and add another frame of sealed brood and bees. I put on the queen excluder with supers above.
I then set the original colony on a new floor on top of the supers.
Any flying bees enter the bottom box on returning from foraging.
This has the effect of creating a strong honey producing colony on the original site with all the flyers, the bees in the supers, and very little brood. With the other part of the split, you have 8 days or more to decide what you want to do with it if none of the cells are sealed. If it a colony I want to rear queens from, I wait till a couple of days before emergence date and remove the cells with a scalpel to put in roller cages which can be wedged in a line between two frames which are seperated slightly. Alternately if there is a frame with just one cell you can take it out to put it straight into a nuc with a bit more brood and bees.
If the part of the split is one I don't want to breed queens from, I either requeen it with a queen cell from a better colony or split it up to make a series of nucs with other queen cells I have.
Another possibility at this stage is rejoining the two colonies if you don't want to make increase.
I learnt most of this from Finman's posts and it has worked well for me this year as I have both strong honey producing colonies and about a dozen nucs.

The only swarm I lost this year is one which absconded from a nuc which I think overheated.

Just one proviso, this is not foolproof and you still have to do 8 day checks. Sometimes a colony is determined to swarm and will continue to make queen cells. In this case I do what crazy bull does and remove the queen to a nuc. It sure beats climbing ladders and scrambling through hedges after swarms.

 

[DulwichGnome]

For me, as a newbk without much experience, this comment is interesting.

Would some of you old hands say that artificial swarm procedure should be carried out as routine ? -

- and if so, when ?

JC.

Following on from this, is there a point in the year when they stop building QCs? Or is a case of, if the conditions are right they will try and swarm?

Thanks.

Mike.

 

[Haughton Honey]

Isn't this pretty much the Demaree method of artificial swarming Jon?

I split immediately I find a queen cell or a queen cup with royal jelly but I have a slightly different routine.
I place a new brood box on the original site with a mixture of drawn comb and foundation. I then place the queen and the frame she is on in the middle of this and add another frame of sealed brood and bees. I put on the queen excluder with supers above.
I then set the original colony on a new floor on top of the supers.
Any flying bees enter the bottom box on returning from foraging.
This has the effect of creating a strong honey producing colony on the original site with all the flyers, the bees in the supers, and very little brood. With the other part of the split, you have 8 days or more to decide what you want to do with it if none of the cells are sealed. If it a colony I want to rear queens from, I wait till a couple of days before emergence date and remove the cells with a scalpel to put in roller cages which can be wedged in a line between two frames which are seperated slightly. Alternately if there is a frame with just one cell you can take it out to put it straight into a nuc with a bit more brood and bees.
If the part of the split is one I don't want to breed queens from, I either requeen it with a queen cell from a better colony or split it up to make a series of nucs with other queen cells I have.
Another possibility at this stage is rejoining the two colonies if you don't want to make increase.
I learnt most of this from Finman's posts and it has worked well for me this year as I have both strong honey producing colonies and about a dozen nucs.

The only swarm I lost this year is one which absconded from a nuc which I think overheated.

Just one proviso, this is not foolproof and you still have to do 8 day checks. Sometimes a colony is determined to swarm and will continue to make queen cells. In this case I do what crazy bull does and remove the queen to a nuc. It sure beats climbing ladders and scrambling through hedges after swarms.

 

[DulwichGnome]

If it a colony I want to rear queens from, I wait till a couple of days before emergence date and remove the cells with a scalpel to put in roller cages which can be wedged in a line between two frames which are seperated slightly.

Thanks for this Jon, I will try this on a Nuc which has 6 cells in it.

Mike.

 

[jon]

Following on from this, is there a point in the year when they stop building QCs? Or is a case of, if the conditions are right they will try and swarm?

Thanks.

Mike.

I reckon you are pretty safe by the end of July but if bees run out of space they can swarm at any time if the weather is right. My busy time this year was mid May during a 3 week period of cold and rain. 6 colonies decided to make queen cells. Last year I was very casual about swarm control and the last natural swarm was 13th July.

If you split relatively early they will be build up again for the main flow which is July and August where I am.

Isn't this pretty much the Demaree method of artificial swarming Jon?

I don't know. I'll have to google it. I picked it up from Finman.

PS. Just checked.
Mine is different as in the Demaree method the colonies are seperated only by a queen excluder.
My top colony sits on its own floor above the crown board on top of the supers.

http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/demaree.html

 

[burch]

i had 4 queen cells in a nuc and when i have inspected 3 of the cells have hatched however the 4th cell is still capped and has not been torn down is this the correct behavour?????

 

[JCBrum]

Thanks crazy_bull, jon et al, very instructive and helpful.

Maybe Finman will comment as well ?

JC.

 

[jon]

i had 4 queen cells in a nuc and when i have inspected 3 of the cells have hatched however the 4th cell is still capped and has not been torn down is this the correct behavour?????

Maybe there is nothing in it. Not every queen cell has a larva.
Another possibility is that the bees closed it up again after a queen hatched.
The queen sometimes leaves it looking like a can which has been opened by a tin opener with a little flap hanging and the bees sometimes push this back and re seal it.
A final possibility is that 1 or more virgin queens left with a cast swarm as a sealed queen cell is like a green light to swarm. It all depends if there were enough bees in the nuc for a swarm.

Thanks crazy_bull, jon et al, very instructive and helpful.

Maybe Finman will comment as well ?

JC.

Yep. Credit where credit is due. I think I also remember hivemaker posting that he does something similar