Problems

[Troutnabout]

Can anyone identify the strain of bees I have? I think they are Carniolans.



My dad had 4 colonies of these bees last year and had 9 or 10 swarms. Despite getting up to 6 colonies by September, he finished the year with 4. The colonies seem to want to swarm more than once, but the swarms are not very viable as new colonies for some reason. The bees themselves are very mild mannered.

The history:
2007 obtained a nuc early in the season from keeper A. Built it up and got a good crop of honey by late season. A fairly dark bee

2008 Got another two colonies from keeper B. Split to obtain 2 nucs. Cant remember what the swarming tendencies were that year. I’d need to get my dads diaries to check.. honey crop was not great from six colonies

2009 Started the season with 5 colonies. Had large number of swarms. Honey crop was good.

2010 Started off with 4 colonies. Had many, many swarms. Ended up with six colonies of which 4 survived till the end of the season.

2011 Only two of the colonies made it to March this year. One has grown very quickly and swarmed twice. I think I may have stopped the other from swarming – time will tell.

When I checked the 1st swarm yesterday, there was no queen, no eggs and no larvae in the hive. There was a few bits of pollen. The bees had filled some cells with nectar and probably the syrup I had given them. There was a queen cup on one of the frames. In total allowing for the bees that were out and about, I think they would cover about 3 frames, which seems to me to be a lot less than I put in there last week.

I checked the large hive thoroughly. There was no sign of a queen; no eggs and only a handful of sealed brood and very little pollen. There was plenty bees though, brood chamber was full as was the super I am also using as a brood chamber. The honey super was full of bees and still contains a good amount of honey some of which is sealed. In this hive I found a large number of opened queen cells and 2 further queen cells. One was actually hatching during my inspection and the other was sealed. I decided to put the frame containing the sealed QC into the original swarm and then watched the second queen hatch.

The 2nd smaller swarm in the nuc contained barely a frame of bees and no queen. I’ll combine this with the original swarm later this week

Have I done the right thing?

[gavin]

Swarmy colonies (like the ones I have currently) are a pain. That is one good reason for raising queens in a more controlled manner - you are free to select whatever colony you wish to supply queens, not the ones that put themselves forward for the role.

The photo you show does look like Carniolans and are similar to one I've been grappling with, trying to hold them together rather than emit lots of swarms. Broad grey stripes on the abdomen, slender bees, a halo of pale hairs on the thorax.

[Jimbo]

They do look like Carionlans. The best way would be to take wing samples for morphometry which will tell you if they are hybrids

[Troutnabout]

New queens then. Which? How? When?

[Troutnabout]

How do i get samples tested?

[Jon]

How do I get samples tested?

Send 50 bees to either myself or Jimbo. or if you want to save me a bit of work, cut off the right forewing of each bee and just send me those. Cut off the corner of an old envelope and put the wings in it. Close it with a staple and post it off inside a piece of folded paper. the right wing is the wing on the right when the bees ass is nearer to you than its head.

PM for my address if interested.

This thread here shows some samples tested so far and discusses the process.

http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/sh...ry-of-2D-plots

[Jimbo]

Hi Trounabout,

Jon is correct, you collect a sample of about 50 bees and place in a freezer. As you are in Lanarkshire and not far from Glasgow you can drop them off to me or can post them if preferred. If you e-mail me I can give you more instructions on how to take the sample and where to send them. We are currently collecting data from SBA members with a view to mapping native bees in Scotland. Your sample and results will be added to the study.

[Karin]

I can't see the photo. Where is it please?

[Jimbo]

Hi Karin,

The photo is at the first post of this thread, Sometimes you can't see photo's if you are not logged in

[Adam]

Carnis are gentle and build up quickly in the Spring - one commerical 'keeper I spoke to uses them for getting OSR. He uses double brood boxes to give them space. I have a colony on the go which is good for bleeding off frames of brood for making up nucs. I also have a carni queen in my small wooden mini-nucs for the same purpose. They just seem to lay eggs as fast as pollen income allows and have very little stores sometimes so they need careful watch if there is bad weather.