Cell building methods

[Finman]

Are you cleaning here extracted boxes or what piles these are.

NO entrances, no bees, no upper ventilation holes??

No bottom boards

 

[Finman]

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Some truths about good yields


Many beekeeper in my country have said that they kept about 10 hive on backyard. They got, let's say 500 kg from yard. Then they dropped the hive number to 5 and again, the yield remained 500 kg. - So they hadd too many hive at same point.

It means that the pasture gives the yield, not hives. If 3 hives is needed to clean frowers inside radius 2 km, then more hives do not bring any more honey.

I have my mating station, where one normal hive is able to clean the flowers.
And last summer I took even that only hive off when I saw what they got compared to other places. (too hot summer and dry landscape)

However, it is wise to keep the queen rearing hive at home. It needs quite much operations.

Even if nectar yield summer is 3-5 months long, the good yield comes in 3 weeks or in 5 weeks. Good honey plants do not bloom very long. Fireweed 3 weeks, rape field 2 weeks, raspberry 2 weeks, dandelion 10 days.

And then when the good dry hot 2 weeks period arrives when the hive can fly like mad. When hot continues, then water vahishes from soil and plants start to suffer for drought. Rasberry looses easily its flowers.

SUMMARY: To catch a good yield, you hives must be ready to attack on pastures when flow appears. You never get it back which is lost.

If you do not get 50 kg honey in June, you will not get it any more in July.





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[mbc]

I had understood that queens finished in a queen right condition had, on average, heavier ovaries. I will try and dig out the reference.

From Queen bee: Biology, Rearing and Breeding by David Woodward
"2.2.7 QUEEN REARING IMPULSES
Supersedure response
Removal of the Cloak board 24-36 hours after introducing queen cells changes the queen rearing impulse. This removes the emergency response and induces the supersedure response with workers now able to make contact with the original queen. Under these conditions queen cells are fed more frequently and for longer before the cell is sealed so queen cells become larger and produce bigger queens."

From Cloak Board Method of Queen Rearing by Susan Cobey
"Queen cells started in a queen-less state tend to have a higher rate of acceptance, and those reared in a queen-right state tend to produce higher quality cells."

 

[Finman]

I Have read researches where it was tested, do queens grow bigger if the hive has been feeded with pollen patty?

The answer was No.

I has been researched too that do queen become bigger if the queen larva is grafted twice.

The answer was No.

*************
But I tired to bees' humour. When I grafted larvae, often they started to rear only few queens, and they prefer to rear their own emergency cells in the middle of brood area. The outcome of queens was often poor.

When I started to graft swarming cells, they all are mere success. Then I move those same frames with bees to the mating nucs. Very easy. But I sacrifice the hive to queen rearing. It need to be only a normal hive.

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[Finman]

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This is very easy way to make queen cells: Miller method

YOu have a hive, which allready rear queen cells. Then you destroy their own cells and take a new comb with eggs and young larvae.

Then cut slices from comb and bees are earger to rear cells in the edges of the comb.
As you see, you get 20-30 queens from one frame. Difficulty is then to make mating nucs to so many virgins.
Queen rearing itself is simple.

 

[Goran]

From Queen bee: Biology, Rearing and Breeding by David Woodward
"2.2.7 QUEEN REARING IMPULSES
Supersedure response
Removal of the Cloak board 24-36 hours after introducing queen cells changes the queen rearing impulse. This removes the emergency response and induces the supersedure response with workers now able to make contact with the original queen. Under these conditions queen cells are fed more frequently and for longer before the cell is sealed so queen cells become larger and produce bigger queens."

From Cloak Board Method of Queen Rearing by Susan Cobey
"Queen cells started in a queen-less state tend to have a higher rate of acceptance, and those reared in a queen-right state tend to produce higher quality cells."

Thank You for the info from "David Woodward" about cloake.
I learned to use Cloake board from my mentor. Nice queens. I have at the moment one jenter-cloake queen from 2011., one of the Apiary leaders. Next year will hopefully give me more of her offsprings.
For me the cloake board as relative beginner is a game, simple and for my understanding safe. But I don't say is better or worse than any other methods ( didn't test others much). Time will tell ( experience and learning will shape my queen rearing in future).
Sorry for off topic, if this post considered as a spam please delete it freely.

 

[sipa]

The cloake board works very well and blends well with Mikes philosophy on rearing queens.

One adaption I have made is to build in a rear entrance to the floor, this saves having to disrupt the colony further by rotating the floor. just close up the front and open the rear entrance. Simple.

 

[Goran]

The cloake board works very well and blends well with Mikes philosophy on rearing queens.

One adaption I have made is to build in a rear entrance to the floor, this saves having to disrupt the colony further by rotating the floor. just close up the front and open the rear entrance. Simple.

I know some does the same, successfully. It is small world.

 

[Hivemaker.]

I tried a few methods/boards one time or another, now only use a couple of queen excluders and very very strong colonies, two or even three national standard deeps, packed with brood, even if i have remove some queens and unite colonies, and anything from two to five shallows, also full of bees.
Sealed cells are removed to incubator every five days, and another set of grafts given.

 

[Finman]

Why wee need strong colony to rear queens


Some get "good" queens with "walk away nucs" where 3 frame nuc rear its own emergency queen. I know that they are not such queens, which i want. I have seen those enough.


But why 3 box hive then?

I have reared queens in 3 box hives, where is a queen under the excluder and queen cells over excluder.

What quite often happens is that weathers are cold and bees retreet from upper box. They go down to protect brood combs. Often happens that queens cells are without nursers. In cold box emerging may happens even 3 days too late.

 

[Michael Palmer]

The real tax on an apiary is the bees taken out of production for stocking nucs, but this is where mini nucs come into their own, each good colony can provide enough bees to stock several without noticeably holding them back, indeed, with a bit of judicial use of bees from colonies starting to boil over and possibly thinking of swarming the total apiary crop can be increased by avoiding that.

I winter my mini-nucs, expanding them from 4 to 18 mini-combs at the last queen catch. In the spring when it's time for queen cells, they're broken up into 4 way minis again. They're a separate operation within my apiary as a whole.

The wintered nucs with standard deep frames are allowed to build up onto 12 combs, and their brood is used to stock the cell builders.

 

[Michael Palmer]

Are you cleaning here extracted boxes or what piles these are.

NO entrances, no bees, no upper ventilation holes??

No bottom boards

Piles? Cleaning? You mean the hives with the honey crop still on? The supers are full. The empty deeps on the ground were removed full of honey and the combs were used to make nucs.

You're looking at the backs of the hives. The entrances and bee flight are on the other side.

 

[Michael Palmer]

From Queen bee: Biology, Rearing and Breeding by David Woodward

I do appreciate what you are saying, but I don't know...

I'm a beekeeper, not a scientist. I pay attention to performance, mostly, and scientific studies only a little bit. My queens lay well, with good patterns , and are, generally, long lived. Their colonies are productive and winter well. I rarely see chalkbrood anymore. I can work my bees in a tee shirt. I get letters of thanks for the good queens from from folks like Seeley and Berry, and places like PennState.

So, whatever it is in my setup, the bees are doing something right.

 

[Finman]

Piles? Cleaning? You mean the hives with the honey crop still on? The supers are full. .

Sorry. Stupid qjuestion. I see from corn stems that it is early ssummer.


I can see from hives that you have only few Langstroth boxes. They are mostly medium boxes. Is that your common system?

 

[Michael Palmer]

Sorry. Stupid qjuestion. I see from corn stems that it is early ssummer.


I can see from hives that you have only few Langstroth boxes. They are mostly medium boxes. Is that your common system?

End of July

I use mediums for honey supers. Any deeps left on top were the cell building units...now full of honey. My brood nests are two deep langstroths and a medium. The bottom three boxes on each hive are the brood nest. You can see that the medium isn't necessarily on top.

 

[Finman]

The bottom three boxes on each hive are the brood nest. You can see that the medium isn't necessarily on top.

OK, you use normal system and with flexiple way.

I know a professional beekeeper whose backbone was surged at the age of 30. After that he has used merely mediums. And I know many too, who uses mediums.

You have much hives, 700. In Finland the raw honey price is better than USA.
Here professional beekeeper has perhaps 500 or 700 hives, but he must run many kind of business inside beekeeping, like queen selling, hive selling, to buy honey from othet beekeepers.

No one pays here for pollinating services.

Problem of Finnish beekeepers is that beekeeping season is very short. It is then heavy physically. July is the main yield period. August gives almost nothing. In special cases biggest hives get surplus in June.
Best yields we get from woods, but there are districts wher only yield plant is canola. And now necotioid ban is stopping the cultivation of canola.

Queen rearing period is short too. Practically it is 2 - 2,5 months.

It means too that a huge number of queens must be produced in short time, mated, and handled forwards.

Our danldlions and apple trees bloom at the first week of June and 10.8 flowers are over.
Willows start to bloom first of May.
Sometimes August is good and sometimes rainy However nature prepare itself for winter, and hives have not much to do. Hives consume 10-15 kg honey during August. That is why professionals take off all honey and start sugar feeding very early.
To rear queens any more in August is an usure job.

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[Michael Palmer]

Thank you Finman, for an informative post. Our regions are similar, with your dandelion/fruit bloom a bit later than ours.

Yes, we too have to diversify our business plan. I make liquid honey and comb honey. I raise nucleus colonies and queens for sale. Some pollinate for pay. I no longer do. After 20 years of pollinating apples with 600 colonies, and seeing what it did to my bees, I gave it up.