And a great pleasure it was to see round, and meet the beekeepers of Ulster. You're encouraging me now to peek at the odd frame when we've a warm day. Drone layers, pah! Who'd have 'em. I was impressed by the diversity of Amm stocks you had there. Is it not better to raise queens from several rather than one main breeder queen?
Popped a nuc into poly yesterday - some BIAS but not great stores. Spoiled them with a frame of honey. Fed the wintering apideas with fondant but not opening them now (not as easy a set up as yours Jon). All the other colonies seem up to weight, this one might have been plundered a bit I guess where it is, but plenty bees.
I used this queen to requeen a full colony I have in my garden last week. Haven't checked if she is laying yet but she is out of the cage and the colony seems calm. She had brood emerge in the apidea and all her offspring are dark so I reckon she only mated with drones in the apiary itself. I wonder is there a genetic component in apiary vicinity mating or is it governed by something else. If you could select for that it would be a damned useful trait for the bee breeder.
The daughter queen in the nuc is laying now and I could not find the old marked queen today. Might still be there, but may be time to write the obituaries. Lets hope the daughter managed to avoid yellow drones on her mating flight.
Originally Posted by Jon I removed 3 supersedure cells yesterday and put them in rollers and when I checked today 2 of the queens had just emerged so they are now in apideas. One of these is laying now.
Was on my own Gav so no photos. I have the laying queen as evidence.
Definitely an element of the bee whisperer amongst our Irish contingent. Cracking images there. If only there were JPGs as well.
Found eggs in the apidea 3 days later
Checked this one again yesterday and the old queen is still laying although the brood is getting spotty. A cell I left is due to have a queen emerge on Sunday or Monday. There was another cell started which was still open and I removed this one. I'll just let matters take their course now and see how long the old queen is allowed to coexist with her daughter.
I should have said potentially great queens. They might mate badly of course. They are lovely specimens as virgins.
Originally Posted by Jon I removed 3 supersedure cells yesterday and put them in rollers and when I checked today 2 of the queens had just emerged so they are now in apideas. Nice looking virgins. Supersedure cells always produce great queens. Always ?
I removed 3 supersedure cells yesterday and put them in rollers and when I checked today 2 of the queens had just emerged so they are now in apideas. Nice looking virgins. Supersedure cells always produce great queens.
The nuc with the old queen has now produced 3 more supersedure cells. I took a couple which were easily removed to use in apideas.
The drone-squeezer extraordinaire! Did you manage to get a word in edgeways? He was talking about writing up his queen raising methods when he was at Scotlandwell (Fife and Kinross) in Nov 2010. Any sign of that happening? If anyone is wondering about the donkey story, catch it here. One of the highlights of SBAi. http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/entry.php?122-Delaney-s-Donkey
Checked yesterday and the new queen is indeed laying. The old one is laying in her nuc and I took a few grafts from her.
This is the colony which is superseding its queen. It is interesting as it has a 100% AMM wing morphometry plot, supersedes, and also exhibits apiary vicinity mating.
There is a clear difference whether you happen to see eggs or not. The mated queen walks more slowly and purposefully whereas virgin queens just skitter about the comb.
Originally Posted by Jon .... she was bigger than her mother and walking more like a mated queen than a virgin. OK, so that Bangles song popped into my head. As did one from the Smiths. [Walk like an Egyptian; Some girls are bigger than others ... ] How does a mated queen walk and how does a virgin walk? A rounded, wobbling swagger versus a prance, a dash? (Wish I could stop anthropomorphising this one ... )
Stephen Noone should have to put up with bad tempered bees when you can rear queens from decent stock. I checked my apideas after you left and found eggs in 4/5 of them. I checked another few belonging to other group members as well and they also had eggs.
Very excited! One apidea and two home-made mini nucs, all with lovely black queens and eggs. Yehaw!!! My grumpy bees are now on borrowed time.
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