ESBA Apiarist

From one to ... ten??

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I wish I could have taken you all with me. What was one bursting colony two weeks ago went over to making Q cells and was split. The queen-right part lost its queen (judging from the age of the larvae, a few days after I last opened it and while there were only eggs in queen cells) and went over to making Q cells itself. In the meantime it had expanded onto another couple of frames. The other part (judging from the age of the larvae 12 days ago) was due to have its first virgin hatch yesterday. So, as you might imagine, the weather postponed opening until lunchtime today. Working quickly, I put two or three frames each into six of those Paynes polystyrene nucs that take 6 frames. Then checked through them - without smoke. Transferred one Q cell into one that didn't have one, and opened four more that had roughened tips and sure enough, there were dark virgins sitting there ready to emerge. They went into four stocked Apideas in the car boot. The six with care and feeding should fill a National by autumn. If the queens get mated of course. The Apideas are my first attempt so I'll not expect much from them.

After work the cold wind had driven almost all inside their nucs. So, six nucs on the back seat of the car, four Apideas in the boot, and as I set off the queens started piping to keep me company. All 10 boxes are now sitting under some flowering hawthorn at the edge of a rape field near Dundee beside the apiary of one of our members. I even remembered to let the bees out. I'll take a picture when I'm there next. Here's hoping for some nice weather in about 5 days for the queens to find the drones over the hawthorn hedge.

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  1. Jon's Avatar
    Good job. Sound like you rescued the virgins in the nick of time. Cross your fingers for some decent mating weather. I have 11 apideas set out with virgins at the moment and most of them hatched 9 days ago so now is the time for a good day or two.
  2. gavin's Avatar
    Forgot to say that there was one virgin on the loose (don't know where she ended up), but the other queen cells were fine. So yes, very much in the nick of time. Probably the workers were protecting them. I have high hopes for these bees. The weatherman was just talking about continuing unsettled weather tonight.
  3. Jon's Avatar
    You can also cross your fingers that apiary vicinity mating is not an old wives tale with regard to AMM.
    I am pretty sure I have had queens mated in very unfavourable weather.
  4. gavin's Avatar
    Maybe unfavourable weather gives apiary vicinity mating and good weather gives wide-ranging queens and drones?

    As his bees remain reasonably Amm (I think) in an area with lots of imports then maybe there is something in AVM.
  5. gavin's Avatar
    From the eleven nucs and Apideas (one had split into two and a part had clustered outside with a virgin so was rehoused - so 11 not 10), two out of four Apideas had mated queens and two out of seven nucs had mated queens. Two of the five failed nucs had drone laying queens and three seemed queenless as of their last visit. I'll see them again this afternoon. Such failures seem commonplace this spring according to the chat at the RHS yesterday.