Jon

Good news all around

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Jon
, 06-06-2011 at 10:06 PM (2181 Views)
Well Gav may well have had good news re. the false alarm about EFB but I also had a good day.

I checked 10 apideas and found eggs in 8 of them.
This included the one I left closed up for 12 days and the two which absconded at the end of last week which I found stuck in bushes.
I am sticking with my theory that this is some kind of signal failure leading to all the bees leaving with a queen on her mating flight.
I saw the two remaining queens as well and they look to be mated but no eggs yet. They were bigger, walking slowly and had a circle of workers attending them. Virgins are small, run like crazy and are largely ignored by the other bees.
My drones must have been enjoying themselves, at least I hope the virgins were consorting with my drones.

Alan from my BKA also reported finding eggs today in two colonies he had almost given up on.

Thursday and Friday were two perfect queen mating days, about 24c and no wind.
One of the queens which I fished out of a hawthorn bush on friday with her cluster was on 26 days from emerging and 29 days today when I saw the eggs so those who say that queens need to mate within a couple of weeks have got it wrong.
The other 7 queens were about 3 weeks from emerging before starting to lay.
I love having extra queens as you can make an almighty cock up and put it right with a new queen.

I set up two queenright cell raiser colonies on Thursday and introduced grafts last Friday. On checking today they had started 32 cells. I grafted another 20 today as well. We have a second group - total beginners just off a course with no bees yet- starting up next week and they are all going down the apidea route for their first bees. It will be a bit of a frenzy to get the apideas filled but I think it is a non threatening way to get into beekeeping - long live the humble apidea.

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Comments

  1. Karin's Avatar
    I like this idea as starting people on apideas. A 5 frame nuc can get too big and too scary for a beginner within a few weeks.
  2. Jon's Avatar
    Hi Karin
    It's a thing we are trialling and it also works as a pressure valve as it is easier than making up over 20 nucs for the beginners at this time of year.
    You are right about big and scary. If you read one of my earlier blog entries - implications of being a beekeeper - it relates to that theme. I got given back a huge colony which I had sold to a bka member as a nuc a year earlier.
    Each beginner will get his/her Apidea with a virgin next week, then 3 weeks for the queen to mate and another 3 weeks before the first brood starts to hatch before any action is needed.
    Anyone who gets a successfully mated queen can use it to make up a nuc.
    I think the going rate for a frame of brood plus adhering bees is about £15 so the beginner can then get a decent nuc with his/her brand new queen for say £60.
    Some of the queens will get lost and other will be accidentally squashed but it is all a good learning experience in a non threatening environment with the bees. It also encourages the newbies to start working bare handed or with nitrile gloves as you really can't deal with an apidea frame wearing a pair of welding gloves which seems to be de rigeur for a lot of beekeepers.
    Queens which go awol can be replaced with another queen cell on the point of hatching.
    One of our senior bka members does beekeeping supplies and his Apideas are £18.50. He gets them from a supplier in Ireland. He is also the guy who teaches the beginners course. Apideas from Thorne are £30.
  3. Beejud's Avatar
    I have been enjoying following your trials and tribulations with the apideas. I think I should go to one of the queen rearing courses sometime so that I have a better understanding of grafting and" bottom rollers ". We have a lot of new members in our local association so perhaps this would be a good way to get some of them started. At the moment they rely on members having a nuc to spare which can be hit or miss at the best of times. The main thing has been to avoid buying in bees and keeping our bees healthy.
  4. Jon's Avatar
    Two more laying queens today.
    By bottom rollers I mean the row of roller cages you put on the cells on the bottom bar
    Updated 09-06-2011 at 08:54 PM by Jon