New Virgin Queen at Hive #3 in Chanhassen

June 25, 2011

Today we did our inspection between rain showers!  It has been a strange month of June with lots of rain and many grey days. Our galoshes are wet and muddy most of the time! 

This mud must add a couple of pounds per boot!

Queen cell

 But most importantly, the honeybees don't like those conditions at all. They feel crowded and cooped up in their hive, even if they actually have lots of space. Thus they want to swarm (move out!). Every week we are reversing the deep boxes from top to bottom to relief the swarming temptation. In addition we remove many queen cells and cups at the bottom of the frames, an indication that the colony "feel" congested and wants to expand which is all natural for bees to do, but as beekeepers, we do want them to stay in our boxes.

Soon, the "swarming season" will be over when warmth and sun will be back. A new nectar flow will come, and the bees will go out again and forage, gathering nectar and pollen; somehow "forgetting" about leaving their hive.

Ben showing a beautiful egg laying pattern

Our 6 hives are doing well, some are perfect, and beautiful. This is due to a "text-book" queen, laying eggs one  at a time in a regular and precise pattern.  We also have some capped honey!

Marked frame inspected for queen cells in hive #3 Chanhassen

    We are also very happy to report that we have a new virgin queen at #3 in Chanhassen. Last week we had taken a frame of eggs and brood  from our best hive, and inserted it in the queen-less hive. We had marked the frame with 2 white dots. Today we saw many queen cells that the workers had made. They fed all queen cells royal jelly and hoped like us to "create" the perfect queen. And they did!

Many queen cells opened, but only one queen will survive

For survival and probably by instinct, the workers constructed more than one queen cell. Their effort was rewarded when the first new queen emerged healthy and ready to be their queen. Her majesty's first duty then, (because the eggs have been laid in succession and not at once) is to  kill without mercy any other contenders to the throne, leaving the first born as sole heir!  We knew we had a queen ,on our frame we saw 6 open queen cells with some still having a dead body in it. Obviously we did not see any eggs, or the queen for that matter but our other clue was the calmness and the soft humming of the whole hive like peace had finally descended upon the colony. It was really something to experience. The workers will do all the clean up while the queen will adjust to her new life. Soon, she will leave her colony and take her "maiden" flight.

No Eggs, No Queen at Hive #3 in Chanhassen

Hive #3 in Chanhassen

June 12, 2011


I have really been busy in the last 3 weeks with: the girls back home from College, the end of High School for our boy, and Ben's broken wrist, surgery and all.

 However, Ben and I religiously visit our apiaries weekly to prevent any possible problems (!) The weather is still not perfect, it is "yo-yo-ing" too much. I am looking forward to a gentle cool summer...Am I expecting too much? Lots of eggs, brood, nectar and even honey can be seen in all of our colonies. All of them are doing fantastically well but #3 in Chanhassen.

Colony #3 in Chanhassen is a 2011 brand new package that we purchased this spring. In all our readings and talking with entomology professors and experts " a new colony does not swarm, so don't worry about the subject!" is their usual response to our swarming question regarding new packages. Now, if you recall, swarming ( the act of the old queen and some honeybees leaving their  house to find a new location) happened to us last year with a new package as well! What are the odds? I may add that it is at the same location again! Maybe we should rush and buy a lottery ticket...we are so lucky!

Yesterday we inspected our colonies in Chanhassen and we noticed that colony #3 was agitated, and rather busy. However the laying pattern was looking wonderfully, regular and nicely organized. As we do know,  right now is "prime time" for swarming. Therefore we took care of all the swarm cells that the workers had been building dutifully in a week, about a dozen or so. When we finished the process, I realized that I had not seen 1 egg during the whole inspection. (In some rare cases the queen will interrupt her laying pattern: for instance if she has less workers that can care for the brood. Or if there is a weired pattern with temperature change. But those are very rare occasions. ) We closed everything up and went home. I thought that maybe I had not seen eggs because my eyes were tired, and it was the last hive to be inspected. Then I started to think as did Ben as well. After sleeping, and  thinking about  the strangeness of what we had seen. We went back today because we had concluded that the hive must not have a queen. She may have died, injured by us handling the frames previously, injured by herself,  sick or  had swarmed with a few honeybees to find a new place to live, finding her colony too crowded.

But this time, Ben and I decided to let nature take its course instead of us getting in the car and driving back and forth to and from Stillwater to buy a queen, and being stressed out. Maybe we are getting wiser! So, we will let the colony creates a new queen. Even though, the colony had a beautiful laying pattern, all those capped brood are already to old to be "designated" as future queen by the workers. They need very young eggs. They will chose a few eggs and will feed them mainly Royal jelly, and those eggs will become queens. (later on the battle for a Queen)

Karine brushing all the honeybees off the frame from hive #1

So we took a frame of eggs and brood from our  hive #1 in Chanhassen,  and placed it in the middle of the nest in hive #3. As I said before because the frame contains eggs, the worker bees will take some of them and will start the remarkable process of raising their own new queen.

    

The frame is free of honeybees

Raising a queen takes an average of 24 days. Next the virgin queen has to take her mating flight. This  process may take a week depending on weather condition, and drones availability. The queen will then settle down and start laying eggs few days later. As you can see this method will take a long time, about a month but I believe that by letting the honey bees raise their own queen, she will  likely have "local" genetics and some "survivor" genes.  The frame we took from hive #1 is our best and strongest hive which also have a very gentle temperament. Now we have to be patient, and let nature runs its course.

Oh, the joy of beekeeping!