Introducing Queens

[Erichalfbee]

Regarding the pollen thing. I had noticed an abrupt decrease in the amount of pollen being bought in to hive 1. I have never seen much going into hive2. There is still a little going into both hives. I thought this may just be down to flows ending, but I did not see much pollen when the brambles came into flower.

From my own studies, I was of the belief that the quantity of pollen coming in would decrease when there is less demand from brood. So it can be an indication of no queen, however if there are laying workers then pollen collection may resume. And pollen collection can change with availability, so its not by any means a reliable indicator.

I also suspect there is a difference in this behavior between strains or even different hives of the same strain. I think I heard Don TFBM say something about how this works for his Russians. And am sure I heard that Italians will just snuffle up any pollen they can find even when queen less.



It would be interesting, if you guys that have an opinion to whether the pollen collection indicator works, can say what type of bees you have?

Thanks as always.

I have black bees....unknown provenance as they arrived in a swarm. wherever these come from I get them every year. I like to keep one or two colonies
The rest are Buckfast

Here is an interesting article on how bees collect pollen as a colony

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00166516

“features of the colony's system for regulating pollen foraging: (1) Pollen foragers quickly acquire new information about the colony's need for pollen. (2) When colony pollen stores are supplemented, many pollen foragers respond by switching to nectar foraging or by remaining in the hive and ceasing to forage at all. (3) Pollen foragers do not need direct contact with pollen to sense the colony's change of state, nor do they use the odor of pollen as a cue to assess the colony's need for pollen. (4) Pollen foragers appear to obtain their information about colony pollen need indirectly from other bees in the hive. (5) The information takes the form of an inhibitory cue”

 

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[bobba]

Thanks Erichalfbee,

So applying what that paper says:

If a hive had stores full to capacity, it would be bringing in pollen based on demand. If the demand suddenly dropped because a queen disappeared then one would expect to observe a reduction in pollen intake. However the same hive could keep bringing in pollen when queen-less if stores are low. One must consider the possibility that stores may become full quickly if demand suddenly falls.

So it may be true in the right circumstances. Knowing how much pollen is in the hive would help, but if you are opening the box then you can just look for eggs.

So the next questions would be how often does a hive have full stores of pollen? And how quickly could they fill those stores if demand disappeared?

So even if theoretically possible, the right circumstances may be so rare that it would never serve as a practical tool. But as far as a method without opening the box go's it may have some use.

I would also expect available storage space to be a factor. I just remembered that hive 1 quickly became honey bound after the queen left, the brood box was just nectar and capped honey.

Like all bee traits I would also expect variations in this behavior.

So I think I will keep going with my own observations.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Like all bee traits I would also expect variations in this behavior.

So I think I will keep going with my own observations.

You've hit the nail on the head
Beekeeping is an art as well as a science
A good beekeeper needs some knowledge, good powers of observation and patience.
You get more relaxed the more experience you gain and the more colonies you have

 

[masterBK]

For those more academically interested in the complex regulation mechanisms of pollen collection Seeley devotes a whole chapter (chap 8 pages 193 to 211) to it in his book "the wisdom of the hive" and reviews/summarises the results of years of research by several people on the subject.

Research by Camazine and others suggests the Pollen requirements of a colony are indirectly monitored by the foragers from the nitrogen content (protein, amino acids etc) in the hypopharyngeal secretions fed to them by nurse bees during trophallaxis. If brood increases &/or pollen stores decrease then the N level of the regurgitated food goes down. In response, pollen foragers increase their foraging intensity by carrying bigger loads & spending more time foraging and less time spent in hive. Also more foragers are also recruited to collect pollen . It has also been suggested that the number of empty cells prepared for pollen storage may also be a factor in determining how much pollen is collected.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Scott Camazine is the link I posted

 

[Beefriendly]

And of course one needs to add the high and low pollen hoarder strains written about by Robert Page Jnr in The Spirit of the Hive. Which is a strong heritable trait with the high hoarders storing approx 6x more pollen then the low hoarders....Interestingly honey yields (nectar collection) is increased significantly in low pollen hoarders vs high.
A lot of this work was initiated to provide high pollen collecting strains for pollination contracts.

 

[Erichalfbee]

.Interestingly honey yields (nectar collection) is increased significantly in low pollen hoarders vs high.

It’s what you’d expect,I guess
The foragers have to do something so if they are not collecting pollen they would be collecting nectar
A previously perfectly balanced colony with no queen can collect a whole brood box of pollen when it doesn’t need it, why? Maybe the same reason it continues to fill supers? Availability

 

[bobba]

Thanks peeps, that's some great info.

I am a huge fan of Tom Seeleys lectures available on youtube. Although I have not seen any of his work on pollen collection, his work on water collection had influenced how I thought the pollen collection would work.

I will see what I can find by Camazine too.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

Often you can learn a lot from just looking at the outside of the hive as to whether there is a Queen inside.....for instance are they taking Pollen in, if yes this is a good indicator that there is brood that was laid by the Queen within several days.

Some of the books say this - unfortunately not always the case.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

I normally refuse to sell queens to beginners without prior inspection by myself. So far this year out of 3 cases where beginners "needed" new queens, all three had queens...

Test frame..

I get calls too from beekeepers wanting a queen. More often than not they don't need one.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I get calls too from beekeepers wanting a queen. More often than not they don't need one.

It’s a common beginners’ mistake but one borne from inexperience usually.
You live and learn though and there has been some good advice here
My few words to those finding themselves “queenless” is patience, test frame and seek help. Bees are not often without a Queen or the ability to make one.

 

[drex]

I have only kept bees for a short time, about ten years, but my policy is always that if I have any doubt I leave it to the bees. They know what they are doing, but this does require patience, which is a challenge for a beginner. Even putting in a test frame I am leaving it to the bees to tell me. Rarely is a hive hopelessly queen less.

 

[masterBK]

Two of my two year old queens took a brood break of about two weeks this month and have jjust started up laying again. Nothing unusual about this but many don't notice such things as there is often no urgent need to go through colonies at this time of year.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

most of my queens go off lay about now

 

[bobba]

Just a quick update. I am waiting until the weekend to open the hives for a proper look.

Looking up through the OMF, I was able to see that one of the cages was empty (hive 2). Unfortunately I could not see the other cage.

Both Hives were busy bringing in lots of bright orange and yellow pollen today

Hive 1 (the hive that produced the swarm) had lots of drones flying in and out today. I have never seen so much drone activity before.

It was encouraging to see the bees bringing in substantial amounts of pollen again. And it was a real novelty to see so many drones.

However, I am curious regarding what the drone activity could indicate!

So fingered crossed for the weekend now, hopefully I will be able to report seeing some plump green marked queens merrily strolling across the wax. And some brood in all stages to boot......."a man can dream"

 

[Poly Hive]

Pollen activity indicates nothing more than they are storing pollen.

I teach that is actually pretty rare to have a queenless colony unless the beekeeper has organised it.

Test frame, patience and between those two it works out.

Most purchased queens die due to the presence of a virgin.

PH

 

[bobba]

Pollen activity indicates nothing more than they are storing pollen.

I teach that is actually pretty rare to have a queenless colony unless the beekeeper has organized it.

Test frame, patience and between those two it works out.

Most purchased queens die due to the presence of a virgin.

PH

I was never 100% sure both hives were quenchless.

I think I squished a QC I should not have in hive 1.

With hive 2 - the swarm. I captured the bees in a cardboard box, then put them into a nuc box at dusk. Unfortunately there were too many bees to put in the box. So I had to grab another nuc and double stack them to get all the bees in. Whilst doing this a lot of bees went in the air and on the ground. Just as it was getting too dark to see, I saw a number of bees had re-clustered in the tree. The next morning at 1st light, I went out to find the hive empty and a smaller number of bees in the tree. I recaptured these bees, but there were far fewer. I had a good look for a Q when putting them back in the ncu, but never saw one. So basically I was a bumbling noob and the Q and most the swarm may have got away.

As said before I unfortunately did not have access to a test frame. And as for patience, I was worried about the time of the season and feared I needed to get the hives queen right before winter.

If I was keeping bees as a commercial enterprise then I would not have risked spending out on new queens I was not certain were needed, but these are pet bees.

I think you have a very high probability of being right about the queens, but I will let you know on the weekend. I just hope to see signs of laying queens in both hives.

 

[jeff33]

The illusive virgin queen. I currently have 3 hives with 2 queens happily sharing the function. It's always hard to tell what is in hive so as the others said, patience is key.

 

[bobba]

I had intended to inspect both hives today. But only had a chance to look in hive 2.

Unfortunately the introduced queen and her attendants were all dead in the cage. I had thought It looked empty before, but I could not see clearly. All the bee candy was gone and the bees were all huddled in a corner making them hard to see.

Still no eggs / brood/ or sightings of a live queen.

I had left a gap between 2 frames to put the cage in. The bees had built extra comb on one of the frames. I know I left the gap for far too long and should have fixed it sooner.

The frame was capped syrup with about 20% pollen. So I fingered I would take the frame out and cut it flat with a knife then pop it back in the hive. I removed the frame and shook the bees off. Then I put it on the ground while I put the hive back together. Just as I had put the lid on the hive I was distracted for about 45m. When I returned I found all the wax had melted into a big gooey mess. So I learned another lesson today about wax and bright sun light.

The swarm was put in the box 5 weeks ago. I have never seen any brood, eggs or queen. I am starting to worry they may not be able to produce any fresh bees to overwinter with. And they just lost a frame that was 120% full of stores.

However I am starting to wonder; If summer bees usually last about 6 weeks. And it is usually older bees that swarm. Then surely after 5 bloodless weeks, I would have virtually no bees left! The population seemed to drop quickly the first 2/3 weeks, then remained stable. And forging activity seems to have increased recently. There is no sign of drone activity in this hive.

Hopefully when I open my other schrodingers hive tomorrow, it will be in a better state.

Thanks as always.