Stumbled on this reference in a section dealing with early wooden mini-nucs:
...A ripe queen cell is hung between the frames at the same time and the cover is put in place. The nuclei are then left in the cool, dark room until the third day when they are moved to their locations. The queens will then have emerged from their cells and each nucleus will be a minature swarm wth a virgin queen.
'Queen Rearing' by Laidlaw & Eckert 1950
It must have been the prevailing 'best practice' in 1900s it seems. Ron Brown in his 1980 guide Managing Mininucs, with delightful subtitle Honeymoon Flats for Honeybee Queens, explains Apidea stocking and adding a queen cell, then goes on:
So this suggests even longer, closed and in the dark."At this stage I put the mininucs in my wine cellar for three or four days, in the dark, in a stable, cool atmosphere .... the back of a garage or garden shed would do (but preferably cool and dark). ... After three or four days the mininucs are taken out of the cellar at dusk, placed on a hive stand with a brick on each and the entrance opened ..."
Last edited by Kate Atchley; 06-12-2015 at 11:04 AM.
It was also the practice shown in the iwf video Skep Beekeeping - Work During the Cast Swarm Period with their mini nucs. Although I often wonder how much of their practice was actually traceable back to the 'old days' and how much was added during the mid twentieth century. Just because they continued to keep bees in skeps doesn't necessarily mean that they stopped adding new techniques gleaned from mainstream beekeeping.
https://youtu.be/Ns2HMtFJRaE
lots of pollen coming in today. Dull weather but 13c.
Jon, I've often noticed distinct differences in our bees's behaviours and guessed that, being nearly 200 miles further north, local conditions must be noticeable different at times. Today the temperatures reached about 9º here though there may be different weather fronts on the move.
Last edited by Kate Atchley; 08-12-2015 at 11:14 AM.
It's still 13c here at 7.30pm. Very mild all day.
http://www.forecast.co.uk/belfast.html
There is lots of ivy still in flower so the bees are bringing in the pollen any change they get.
The bees are still flying from the apideas as well.
Most of my colonies still had brood towards the end of November but I would hope the queens have stopped laying now.
It is a double edged sword as the extra winter bees are very welcome but the colonies have been getting lighter quite quickly.
Some of them are also dropping a fair number of mites so the Oxalic treatment is going to be critical this year.
I reckon they reared at least 3 maybe 4 rounds of brood after Apiguard treatment in August.
Not todays news as such, but this comment left on a youtube channel did catch my eye. What an absolute waste of sugar.
to late for my bees.
I killed them with anti varroa chemicals.
And I fed them with sugar....
and bees
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