The bees. Oh my, I have had to take big steps Re the Queens of both large colonies. Both the queens are four years old which is twice the age of normal queens. My colleagues usually replace the queens every year, or at the most every two years. Personally, I feel that there is no need to "thank" the queens if they are still functioning normally. The worksters will let me know if they have twigged that the queen is beginning to flag on some front like weakening pheromones or if her eggs are finished or if she is ill. They will either kill her or usher her out of the hive to swarm away, once she has filled newly made "queen cells", housing her replacement. A queen can live up to five years, but the reality of it is that after two years generally she is worn out. It is this reluctance to thank my queens that has landed me in this situation where I have two enormous colonies (more than 80,000 bees each) with queens that are exhausted. They are F2 hybrids and so I cannot let the worksters make a new queen from this gene pool because the new queen will then be too far from her race. Too watered-down. Too wild, as it were. So then, what to do? I called up a colleague and asked if he would like to help me with a chore. haha...a chore. Help me. He had easily twenty years more experience than I do, but he has this specific race of calm bees that I want to have, so he was a logical candidate. I went begging for some eggs and larvae to place into my hives so that the existing dames could make queens having new DNA and being closer to the F0 status of purity. Well, he was to appear on a certain day. I went through both hives first and broke out all the queen cells then removed the old ladies and placed them both in their own 3-frame hives with a hand full of bees to feed the queens and keep them company. The queenless worksters would then make a new set of queen cells from the existing larvae and I would come back in nine days to remove them, making the colonies queenless and hopeless (unable to make more queen cells). Then my mate would come with his frames from his good bees and we would then insert some of his eggs and larvae. I went through and removed all the queen cells from the first hive--no worries. The second hive was another story, however. The cells in there had been chewed open which indicated that there was a queen walking around somewhere. I looked through all the frames twice and could not find her. Darn! Well, I called my colleague and told him...he laughed and said that he'd find that new queen and we could continue with our work. He came and looked through the frames twice also and his laugh faded. He couldn't understand it. Only one thing for it mates--Empty all the bees into a plastic bushel trug and then dump them all back into the hive but with a queen separator in place so that the worksters would pass through, but the fatter queen would not. She would be left high and dry ...alone, on top of the rooster. No queen. He concluded that she had died or the workester found her unqualified and stung her to death. So now, I m waiting for the colonies to make new queen cells from the larvae from my colleague's bees. I am waiting with abated breath.
Oh my ! Sounds to complicated for me ! I just call the neighbor and buy a pint or two of red clover honey ! Much easier! The bees still visit me though ! They love flour !
Wow! I'll say complicated! I am hoping that this set of steps will have working and you will soon have a healthy queen (an F0? ) ready to start laying soon.
Mart and Cayu--It honestly isn't complicated, I believe that it sounds complicated due to my inability to describe the process properly. Cayu--The dames will not make an F0 queen because the larvae and eggs come FROM an F0 queen...so what I will get will be an F1 Queen. One step removed from the pure-bred, see what I mean?
Another three days and I can have a listen and look to see how its going inside the hive. I am a little restless because I want very much this to work, but it is just too dangerous to look in at this stage, as the queen cells will be extremely fragile. Glad that you got the gist of this procedure, it isn't everyone's cup of tea.
Sjoerd, good luck in three days--I bet you have a great result. Just a question--when bees move to a new hive, do they have a "house swarming" party?
OMGoodness gracious me, Jane ! You leave me breathless...and the Bride too. She really liked this one. She's still giggling out in the living room. I can hear her. How do you think them up.
