As you can see, it’s completely dried up and black, the pulp has been removed and all that is left is the skin and what might have been seeds…?

Do bananas have seeds?

Well they must have otherwise – what it the raison d’etre?

Anyway, the whole thing smells of propolis only.

Effects on the Bees

The bees seem very strong and healthy but then we’ve had about a month of benevolent weather and a strong ivy flow. No ill effects to be seen and I didn’t see dead bees being shovelled out during the banana or see them hanging out the front.

Chalkbrood effects

As for the chalkbrood – well there is plenty of brood about the place and the pattern is good but it hasn’t gone away you know. It’s still there but not so much I think but then they  were treated with MAQS beforehand which seems to trigger some vigorous housekeeping.

Conclusion?

Wrong time of the year and completely unscientific but the bees didn’t seem to suffer at all and I’d certainly try it again mid summer.

Unless  anyone out there can come up with a better explanation for the shape, and indeed the size, of a banana – I’d say it’s so they can  elegantly encircle the brood nest like this:

Click here for more on Chalkbrood and the Banana Thing

Copyright © Beespoke.info, 2016.  All Rights Reserved.

While there is ‘anecdotal evidence’ for  bananas as a cure for chalkbrood – it is not scientifically proven.

However,  it isn’t scientifically disproven either and there’s no smoke without fire.  Read on…

Here is the usual response to the Banana Thing:

But like smoke without fire – could there be something to it?

Just so we know what we’re talking about – here’s the recipe:

Recipe

• Cut an unpeeled banana in half lengthways;
• Sit the two halves – cut side uppermost – on the top bars of the brood box;
• Add a 1″ eke if need be;
• Replace the crownboard;
• Close the Varroa floor;
• Leave alone for 1 month;
• When you come back the chalk brood will be gone. Apparently.

But what is the mechanism?

It could be:

• Hygienic behaviour;
• Alarm Pheromone mimicry;
• Ethylene;
• Ethylene breakdown product;
• Something else;
• One of the above, several of the above, all of the above or none of them.

Hygienic Behaviour

We all express hygienic behaviour – even me. Like if you get a whiff of something horrible – you check your shoes and if they’re clear you conclude you imagined it. If you get another whiff you look further afield – somebody else’s shoes, under the table perhaps, or behind the settee.  If there’s still nothing you might assume it came in through the window but when you get that third whiff you really go into overdrive: you get the torch out and the rubber gloves on.

That is hygienic behaviour but when the bees do it – there’s more of them and they don’t wait for the third whiff –  they just go bananas at the first one.

Alarm Pheromone

With bees, the  horrible smell could be simply that rotting banana smell – we all know they have a short fuse. However, I read somewhere that bee alarm pheromone  smells like bananas and I remember hearing of somebody who came into close contact with savage Africanised bees – he was well protected inside a strong beesuit but the bees were going bananas stinging the suit and I remember him saying there was a smell like bananas. I’ve also heard it said – don’t eat bananas before going to your bees because they don’t like it and perhaps that’s why. That’s more anecdotal stuff for you.

Either way, perhaps the smell of alarm pheromone puts the bees into a state of heightened awareness and who knows how that might be expressed; they might reach for the rubber gloves and the torch.

Ethylene

If you put a ripe banana in a paper bag with an Unripe Thing – the banana will ripen the Unripe Thing. This is because  ripening bananas are a source of ethylene which is a gas and also a plant hormone. 7 days after the banana leaves the cooler and hits peak-ripeness the ethylene production spikes thus:

If at this point your banana and your unripe thing are in the bag together – the ethylene will tell the unripe thing to get ripe – and it will, because as we said, ethylene is a plant hormone and plants do as they are hormonally instructed.  This is a scientifically proven fact by the way – not an anecdote.

If you further enclose your paper bag of fruits in  plastic bag this will prevent the escape of ethylene and the effects will be more pronounced as ethylene causes more ethylene to be produced. This has implications for the banana chalkbrood thing and if you try it you should refrain from looking under the crownboard or you will release the ethylene.

Fruit ripeners use ethylene commercially to ripen fruit and fruit merchants will chemically remove ethylene from refrigerated units to help preserve it.

What has this to do with chalkbrood says you? Well for one thing it shows you that ethylene itself is a chemical that can provoke a reaction in plants.

In the presence of oxygen, ethylene can degrade to other interesting chemicals.

Ethylene Degradation Path

• Ethylene C₂H₄ ->
• Ethylene oxide C2H4O ->
• Oxalic acid C₂H₂O₄ ->
• 2 CO₂

In the presence of oxygen, ethylene degrades to ethylene oxide – another gas but one which is used as a fumigant to kill fungi on stored grain and artefacts in museums. Also insects!

More importantly, ethylene oxide has been shown to decontaminate honeybee larvae killed by chalkbrood. There’s interesting!

Click here for a look at that paper

The ethylene oxide further degrades to oxalic acid and we know what that does. To Varroa anyway.

But is the degradation spontaneous – that’s what I’d like to know.

Is there a Chemist in the house…?

Experiment

There’s enough there to arouse my curiosity so rather than just dismiss it as a myth let’s try it and see what happens. It just so happens that I’ve got a hive of bees here with bad chalkbrood …. I’ll let you know what happens but that will be more anecdotal evidence.

Click here for chalkbrood and the banana results

Click here for more about Chalkbrood on this site

Click here for Chalkbrood on DaveCushman’s site

Click here for more on Ethylene gas

Click here for Ethylene as a plant hormone

Wikipedia on Ethylene

Gochnauer, T. A.  & Margetts,V. J. (1980) Decontaminating Effect of Ethylene Oxide on Honeybee Larvae Previously Killed by Chalk-Brood Disease. Journal of Apicultural Research. 19: 261-264

Here are some notes on what makes a good one.

Finding a good heather site can be quite difficult bearing in mind the often difficult terrain, security and the needs of the bees. This one above has pluses and minuses but overall it is a good one.

Here’s a picture of the bees working yesterday (temperature only 12 degrees C) note the pale pinkish beige pollen loads. Bell heather is more white. Click photo for a close up.

The Plusses

• It is very high up the hill (440m or nearly 1500ft) and surrounded by stands of pure ling (Calluna vulgaris) with patches of bell (Erica spp) heather in amongst. The bees literally have their feet in the heather;
• Only upland heather sites will give you pure ling heather honey. The altitude here places any ivy (Hedera helix) out of range if the two flows do coincide which has been known in the past. Pure ling heather honey does not granulate unless it has something else in it – especially ivy. If you are producing sections or comb honey that’s the last thing you need!
• There are patches of rosebay willowherb (Chamerion or Epilobium angustifolium pollen loads are blue) up here where the ground has been disturbed for forestry or the like. In previous years the bees have brought this in along with the ling but it didn’t seem to make the heather granulate and the flavour and colour was only slightly paler than pure ling. Not a problem then.
• The site faces east so the  sun gets them up early in the morning. Also it is in a little bowl in the hillside with rising ground behind which protects the bees from the prevailing westerly winds. West or north facing slopes can be very shady and cold;
• It is secure and well away from public roads and footpaths.

The Minuses

• The hawk-eyed amongst you will have noticed the heather beetle damage in for foreground but the heather is recovering well and there is plenty of forage despite that;
• It  can be very windy up here and that is hard on the bees if they are trying to fly although any cyclists out there don’t need to be told about the pros and cons of a strong head wind – especially if you head out into one.
• There are other hazards though namely fellow residents and visiting bipeds;
• There are rather a lot of sheep on the hill but they have been recently shorn – at least one of these colonies is a bit on the assertive side and I trust them to look after themselves if anyone woolly comes rubbing.
• There are also deer and for the first time I saw wild goats here yesterday but they were at a respectful distance. Not sure how much of a threat they could be – they look rather hairy.
• Crocodiles (!) of hikers pass not far from here and the occasional lost one walks right by  on the wrong track quite close to the bees. Fortunately the hives are not visible from the track. Even if they were – walkers aren’t usually the type to pitch stones or set fire to heather but you never know.

Click here for how to prepare bees for the heather

Click here for how to take a crop of heather honey

Click here for the Heather Ecosystem

Click here for how to get sections

Click here for Heather Honey recipe

Copyright © Beespoke.info, 2015.  All Rights Reserved.

The sheet below has been designed to record both Colony Assessment Data and routine beekeeping information from each visit. Click it for a better view. Scroll down and I’ll walk you through it…

Alternatively click here to download the same sheet in Excel format

Here goes:

It starts with boxes to record the queen colour (and number, if you number your queens), the hive number and the location.

The first 5 columns are to record the answers to Hooper’s five questions which guide the beekeeper through what he or she should be looking for on each visit – namely:

• Do the bees have enough space? This is important for swarm prevention and swarm control;
• Is the queen present and is she laying?
• How many frames contain brood?
• Is there any sign of disease?
• Do the bees have enough stores?

Click here for more on Hooper’s 5 questions

The next 7 columns headed A-G are based on Colony Assessment Criteria devised by the Galtee Bee Breeding Group and these are to assess the quality of each colony. Each trait is marked out of 5 with 5 being the highest mark and 0 the lowest with the exception of Chalkbrood which is an undesirable trait – if there is a lot of chalkbrood the mark is 0 and if there is none the mark is 5.

• Docility – are the bees nice and docile or do they want to kill you and your smoker?
• Steadiness – are the bees steady on the comb or are they running about;
• Brood pattern – is the brood pattern solid and unbroken or is it erratic or pepperpot? Pepperpot brood can be a sign of American Foul Brood OR inbreeding;
• Pollen – have the bees got lots of pollen? The urge to amass lots of pollen is a sign that the bees will overwinter well and can sustain themselves through long periods of foul weather;
• Comb building – do the bees draw beautiful even honey comb or is it ragged and abstract?

If you wish, you can add columns to record blackness and chalkbrood.

• Blackness – are the bees nice and black? There can be varying amounts of orange bees in amongst their black sisters. This is a mark of how many orange drones were involved in the mating of the queen and as such is a measure of interbreeding with non-native bees. If there is a high percentage of orange bees, the queens (however black they themselves might be and however pure their origins) should be culled before they begin to produce drones.
• Chalkbrood. A lot of chalkbrood is a sign that the bees do not have Hygienic Behaviour in their DNA and as such will be less likely to detect Varroa in sealed brood.

At the end of the season – the data from the assessment sheets can be analysed and the results tabulated for appraisal and comparison using a Colony Appraisal Sheet. Click here for more on Honey Bee Colony Appraisal.

Click here for How to Use this Stuff to Improve your Bees

Copyright © Beespoke.info, 2015. All Rights Reserved.

Once upon a time I used to keep mice. They don’t swarm but they are territorial and they do fight. If you try to introduce two mice, of any or either sex, by simply dropping one into the cage of the other they will fight. However, if you put the two of them together in a third cage they will get along like a house on fire. This is what I call ‘the third box principle’ and the same thing applies with bees.

Before we go any further I should state that the Third Box Principle is not an explanation of bee behaviour but it is a mental model which helps the beekeeper to ‘put a handle’ on what is observed. It is also a particularly helpful thing to know when you are in the thick of the latest bee conundrum and wondering what the hell to do next – it can give you extra options.

Here are some useful things to do with it:

Nucs

This is great when making up nucs. As you know, for a nuc you need a queen, 3 frames with brood on, 1 frame of stores and 1 frame with lots of pollen on it. Using the third box principle you can take frames of bees, pollen and stores from 1, 2, 3 or even 4 hives of bees to put into the nuc and they won’t fight. If you are afraid they will then just hold two frames together and watch them. If you want to put a queen in then it is probably best if you take her and the frame she is on and put her to one side of the nuc and then put another frame of her bees and brood next to her. Then fill the nuc with bees from several different hives. This has never failed with me.

Queen Rearing

If you are into queen rearing and want a really strong colony for your cell rearer then you can take a spare hive or two out with you to your out-apiaries fill it/them with frames of bees and brood taken from each of your strongest hives. Just make sure you know where your queens are! You can then quietly unite these boxes of confused bees with your rearer hives using the newspaper method.

Re-queening

This can also be used in requeening – which can be ticklish enough. If you have your new queen in a nuc:

• Move the nuc to one side:
• Place an empty, full size box and floor in its place;
• Transfer all the frames from nuc to the back of the full size box;
• Fill the space with bees from another queenless hive or bees you have gathered as per the method above.

This will work also work with bees which have resorted to laying workers.

Apideas

You can also use it combine Apideas, say one with a laying queen and two that you have removed the queens from – 9 frames in all. In this case you’ll  need a fourth box: a fresh empty Apidea plus an empty Apidea super.

Do this on the site of the queen right Apidea.

• Move the queen-right Apidea to one side and put the fresh empty box in it’s place without the feeder;
• Load the 3 frames, including the queen into the fresh box then fill the   remaining two spaces (where the feeder isn’t) with two frames and the adhering bees from one of the queenless Apideas;
• Set the super (extension – whatdoyoucallit) in place and fill it with the remaining frames and bees from the queenless apideas;
• Spray any bees remaining in the apideas with water, gently tumble them into a corner and pour them into the new double decker;
• Put an empty frame in the remaining space;
• Walk away and don’t look back.

Test it

If you are in doubt about this – don’t take my word for it. It works with my  bees but it might not work with yours and there are always exceptions. So test it – get your third box and put a couple of frames into it from different hives – but not too close together – then watch as you push them towards each other…

And always be aware of where your queen/s is/are!

Copyright © Beespoke.info, 2015. All Rights Reserved.

Oxalic acid is a very effective treatment for Varroa but only during broodless periods when the kill rate can be above 90%. When brood is present the kill rate is closer to 30% as most of the Varroa are in the brood where this acid cannot reach them. Click here for more on oxalic acid.

For this reason oxalic acid tends to be used during the mid-winter broodless period – if there is one!

However,  winter is not the only time bees are broodless and oxalic acid can also be used during summer broodless periods when the Varroa are phoretic (out and about on the bees).

Summer Treatment

Imagine a swarm…

Technically, that swarm is Varroa-free. Note I say ‘technically’ – because there are of course a few Varroa present attached to the flying bees but most are left behind sealed in the brood or creeping about on the comb and on the young bees.

This point accepted then you can deal with the other half when all the brood has hatched three weeks later. If you treat with oxalic acid at this time, before the new queen starts to lay, you can expect a spectacular knock-down of mites.

These conditions occur each time you allow a swarm to get away or when you perform an artificial swarm. An oxalic treatment can thus be incorporated into your artificial swarm routine at, or shortly after day 21. Click here for detailed artificial swarm instructions.

However, regard must be given to the possibility of honey contamination.

Taking Precautions

Oxalic acid is a natural constituent of honey. The concentration varies depending on the botanical origin of the honey but it is at levels that cause no harm to humans and experimental work has shown there is no significant increase in honey due to spring or summer oxalic acid Varroa treatment (Rademacher &Harz). And they must have had their supers on.

Now imagine your way through an artificial swarm…

After you have moved the original box to the opposite side and it loses that second cohort of flying bees it simply doesn’t have the ‘man-power’ to be putting anything into supers. It doesn’t need supers so move them to the parent stand at least for a couple of weeks until the new queen starts to lay. If it is short of stores in the meantime – feed it.

Because oxalic acid has hydrophylic or water-loving properties, it is thought unlikely to accumulate in wax either (Rademacher &Harz).

Trickle or Vaporise/ Sublimate?

I prefer the trickling method, especially for summer, as this allows you to tailor the dose according to the strength of the colony ie only trickle active seams of bees and if they are particularly weak give only 2mls of a 3.2% solution per seam instead of 5mls if they are strong. Click here for oxalic acid recipe.

It is less easy to tailor the dose if you are vaporising.

Snelgrove Boards

If, like me, you use Snelgrove boards then oxalic acid can be incorporated into methods 1 or 2 at day 21 as above but it might be an idea to temporarily cover the metal grille throughout the treatment.

Click here for Oxalic Acid for Beekeepers

Click here for Winter Oxalic Acid Treatment

Click here for more on Snelgrove

Click here for pictures and how to make your own Snelgrove board

Click here for Varroa Floor Flaw

Click here for recipes for both concentrations and instructions.

Click here for pictures and how to make your own Snelgrove board

Sources

Aliano, N. An Investigation of Techniques for using Oxalic Acid to reduce Varroa mite populations in Honey Bee Colonies and Package Bees. (2008) University of Nebraska

Nanetti, A., R. Büchler, J.D. Charrière, I. Fries, S. Helland, A. Imdorf, S. Korpela, and P. Kristiansen.  Oxalic acid treatments forVarroa control (Review). (2003) Apiacta 38: 81-87

Rademacher, E.R & Harz, M. Oxalic acid for the control of Varroosis in honey bee colonies – a review. (2006) Apidologie 37: 98–12

Rashid, M, Wagchoure, E.S., Mohsin, A.U., Raja, S., Sarwar, G. Control of Ectoparasitic Mite Varroa destructor in Honey Bee (Apis mellifera. L.) colonies by using different concentrations of Oxalic acid. (2012) Journal of Animal and Plant Sciences, 22(1): 72-76

Copyright © Beespoke.info, 2014. All Rights Reserved.

Heather honey is much sought-after (lovely heather honey recipe here) and commands a great price but to get a crop is not easy so the beekeeper needs to know about the Known Unknowns and Known Knowns. Not to mention the Unknown Unknowns.

The Known Unknowns

There are factors the beekeeper knows about and knows he can’t do anything about – basically the heather and the weather:

• Heather is flakey – it doesn’t always yield nectar;
• Even if the heather does yield – the weather in the hills at the end of summer can be flakey too.

The Unknown Unknowns

There are also factors he doesn’t know he doesn’t know about. Heather is just part of a complex ecosystem consisting of all sorts of things you might not  have heard of, some or all of which may have profound effects on the honey flow or lack or it. Click here for more on the Calluna vulgaris ecosystem.

The Known Knowns

But there are things the beekeeper can do to maximise the chances of a crop despite the known unknowns: – pay special attention to the known knowns:

• Queen age;
• Colony size;
• Hive material;
• Feed;
• Exclude the excluder;
• Foundation;
• Lowland sites vs Upland sites.

Queen Age

Queens need to be young – preferably mated in June of the same year. Such queens will be just building up and will expand the brood nest in response to a flow and honey will be readily packed into the super. This expansion of the brood nest will also provide the colony with a strong, young cohort of workers to take them through the winter.

Older queens, even one-year olds, may have been laying since March and are tired. Their brood nests will be contracting and the workers will be getting ready for winter; any heather honey brought in will be packed into the brood box rather than up in the super. Bringing in a crop of heather honey will also deplete the winter bees and the colony under a tired queen will not be able to replace them. This is probably behind the notion that heather honey is bad for winter bees.

Colony Size

The colony needs to be as strong as possible. The best bet is to unite two colonies then clear them into a single National brood box and, if necessary, requeen with a young queen. If you use Snelgrove Boards then these management methods will provide you with colonies in perfect condition under new queens ripe for the heather. Click here for more on Snelgrove

Commercial boxes are too big for Irish conditions and you will almost certainly find most of your heather crop downstairs in that enormous brood box.

Don’t be greedy. Only put one super on at a time. If you put two on, not only are you asking for more than you are likely to get but also you are putting a great big draughty attic above the bees when what they need is warmth to draw that lovely white heather wax. And you do want your honey capped don’t you? If there is a huge flow you can always add another super later.

Hive Material

Polystyrene hives have advantages and they have disadvantages but for the heather they’re perfect because they are so warm. This is important because it can be cold in the hills and the bees need warmth to draw wax and ripen the honey. More on hives and materials here.

Feed

Feed the bees really well for heather – you want them stuffed to the gunwales. Remember they can be up in the hills for up to 6 weeks and it might rain for the duration. I’ve known this to happen and brought them back pitifully light, with no brood at all and not a grain of pollen.

So give them 2 gallons of strong syrup or 7 litres of Ambrosia or other beefeed before you put the supers on. That way they will pack it down into the brood chamber filling every cell so if there’s heather then it has nowhere to go except upstairs.

Whether you feed them at home before you take them to the hills or take them to the hills and feed them up there is entirely up to you – it’s as broad as it is long. That said – if it turns cold in the hills – and it often does – they probably won’t take their lovely syrup down. Best feed them as soon as possible after removing your summer honey.

Exclude the excluder

You shouldn’t need a queen excluder – especially if you have fed them well and the bees have a good arc of honey across the top of the brood nest – the queen will be unlikely to cross this barrier unless seriously disturbed.

Instead, spread a square of plastic film/polythene across the top bars of the brood box leaving about an inch all the way round. This will give the bees free access to the super and the queen is unlikely to come up round the edges.

If you are uneasy or jinxed put the excluder on – it just doesn’t give the bees such easy access and they may be reluctant to go up into the supers. In which case remove it till they go up then replace it – make sure the queen is downstairs or you’ll be spitting fire.

Foundation

Use unwired thin foundation for cut-comb honey but trim off a half inch strip so there is a gap above the bottom bars of the frame. This ultra-thin foundation stretches in the heat of the hive and if you don’t trim it, it will buckle where it comes up against the bottom bars of the frames and you’ll have an unsightly pleat in your lovely honeycomb.

You can use wired foundation if you like, or just put your summer supers on straight after extraction. However, you won’t be able to extract it and will either have to cut the comb and wires from the frames or scrape the honey off the midrib with one of those sturdy scrapers for taking the ice of windscreens and then shove the lot through a heather press. Either way – it’s a terrible waste – good, drawn supers are valuable.

Another alternative is to simply give the bees a 1 or 2 inch starter strip of foundation. If there is a flow, they will draw comb down from these. If there isn’t – nothing is lost. However, they will be burning precious heather honey to make more wax so if you give them foundation of some description – again you are maximising your potential honey crop.

Lowland vs Upland Heather Sites

There are two sorts of heather sites – Upland and Lowland.

Upland sites are up there in the hills where the bees have their feet in the heather. The first obvious advantage is that they are right there in the crop. The second advantage is that the higher up they are the more pure your crop is likely to be and the less likely you are to get ivy, late blackberry or fireweed mixed in with your crop. Pure heather honey is beautiful beyond compare and furthermore – it doesn’t granulate so is perfect for cut comb.

There are disadvantages though. The weather can be very bad up there – windy and wet – and bee-casualties are high. Such sites are seasonal and as such you are faced with moving bees all at once at the end of the summer when you are probably running out of energy and may have to cope with your main summer honey crop all at the same time. There is a lot of work involved in moving bees – especially if you want to do it properly.

Lowland sites are (obviously) sited down the hill in the balmier conditions but within reach of the heather. They have the advantage that they can be used the whole summer long so you can be getting your bees ready for the heather without having to move them. However, if the blackberry is late and/or the ivy is early you will not get a pure crop. Lowland sites can be much warmer and sheltered so the bees might get up earlier in the morning and work later but they are almost certainly going to have further to fly – however, it’s all downhill on the home flight.

The other type of lowland site is bog heather. I have to confess I don’t know much about bog heather honey but it is almost certainly less pure than hill heather and will contain bell heather (Erica spp.) as well as Calluna. Also, bog heather is even flakier than hill heather. More of this in the upcoming piece on heather ecology.

In a nutshell…

Upland sites are difficult: they are hard to find, access can be challenging, security can be a problem and bees need to be moved.

Lowland sites are easier in all respects but the honey is less likely to be pure.

We’ve covered the Known Unknowns and Known Knowns but to really get to the bottom of heather you need to know about the Unknown Unknowns – click here for Heather Ecology and the Unknown Unknowns.

Click here for how to prepare colonies for the heather

Click here for the heather ecosystem

Click here for more on good heather sites

Copyright © Beespoke.info, 2014. All Rights Reserved.

But that’s rare. The reason you can’t just put a new queen into the hive is that all the bees of a particular colony have their own peculiar smell. A new queen will not smell right and the bees will almost certainly kill the intruder.

The Usual Method

The most common queen introduction method involves putting the queen into a small wire or plastic cage which is then plugged with candy or newspaper. The bees can communicate with her through the wire and eat their way through and release her. Hopefully they will feed her in the meantime. By the time the bees are in direct contact with the new queen, her smell will have permeated the hive and the bees have become accustomed to her.

In addition, the target hive is often left queenless for a period of 7 days or more  beforehand to allow them to raise queen cells which are then removed leaving the hive hopelessly queenless. This is particularly necessary when introducing a queen from the post as these will be off-lay and not so readily accepted as ones straight from an apidea.

This method is mostly reliable although there are occasions when bees can be very difficult to requeen and serial attempts fail. Difficulties can arise in colonies where:

• Bees have been queenless for a while,
• Bees have laying workers;
• Very large and/or aggressive colonies.

To make matters more complicated – there are three categories of new queen and they each have different attributes to consider:

• Laying queens – straight from the parent hive/apidea;
• Queens that come in the post;
• Virgins.

Laying Queens

A laying queen will be exuding queen substance and as such will have strength and fertility written all over her – just what a queenless hive is looking for.

Sometimes, a very strong queen seems to be unable to turn off the stream of eggs and will continue to lay whilst in the cage!

Postal Queens

A queen that came in the post was a laying queen when she went into the cage but she is no longer a laying queen when she gets to you. The smell of queen substance may be diminished and the bees may develop the opinion that she is in fact failing and raise queen cells to supersede her.

Virgins

Virgins are the most difficult of all – they have ‘intruder’ written all over them and little scent of queen substance to calm the reception committee.

Snelgrove’s One Hour Matchbox Method

An ingenious method is described by L.E.Snelgrove in his wonderful book Introduction of Queen Bees. He calls it the ‘Snelgrove 1 hour method’ and it has the added advantage that you don’t have to leave your target hive queenless for 7 days while they raise queen cells. It is often successful where other methods fail.

I have tried it several times with difficult and aggressive colonies and it has only failed me once.

Here’s what you do:

• Dequeen your target hive in the late afternoon or early evening;
• At the same time put 20-30 of the worker bees into a matchbox;
• Put the matchbox into your pocket for 10 minutes so they can come to terms with their predicament;
• If your new queen has to be marked, now is the time – don’t clip her – it will reduce the chances of her acceptance and you can always clip her next spring;
• Remove the matchbox of bees from your pocket;
• Take gentle hold of your queen – do not to squeeze her abdomen;
• Carefully open the matchbox a little and thrust the queen into the box with the workers – there will be some scuttling and buzzing but they won’t harm her;
• Return the matchbox to your pocket for a further 30 minutes or so;
• By now your target hive should have been queenless for getting on for an hour – they will have become anxious;
• Gird your loins;
• Quietly remove the roof and open the feed hole a bit – about half an inch;
• Blow a little puff of smoke or spray some water, just enough to send the bees away;
• Place the matchbox over the hole and slide it open enough to allow bees and queen to run down;
• Leave strictly alone for 7 days.

It is important that this is done in the late afternoon or evening or on a rainy day otherwise there may be armies of workers coming in to find a new queen when they didn’t even realise they were queenless.

Requeening of vicious hives

As usual, a vile tempered colony of bees turned up mid-season. I had split it with a Snelgrove board but then the new queen failed and the resultant bees got angrier and angrier. I tried to requeen it in the usual way – with a laying queen in a cage stopped with candy – but the bees were just too angry and too strong. They killed her and spat her out. Then I took their honey and they got worse – the sort of bees that harpoon you and ping off the smoker and the wax bucket!

Last week, having a glut of laying queens in Apideas, I decided to try the one hour method with my angry hive figuring that if they killed another queen I would just split them up into two or three nucs and then requeen each one.

But yesterday, 7 days later, when I went to check them, you could almost tell they were queen-right by the smug way they were hanging out the entrance – taking the air and waxing their antenae. Close inspection revealed that yes, the marked queen was accepted – there she was striding about and laying like a train.

By the way, this method can also be used for Apideas – just put the matchbox in the space behind the ventilation grille. Click here for how to do that.

Click here for Queen Bee Introduction – the Basics

Click here for How to Introduce a Queen Bee in a Postal Cage

Click here for the Paper Bag method of Queen Bee Introduction

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Alternatively you could just put a big sponge on the roof and wet it at intervals. Make sure there is a slope is away from the entrance or water will run in.

Also, make sure that you have the ventilation grille partially open so the bees can circulate the air. If you fully open the door you will fully close the grille so avoid that – see the photo above.

Click here for instructions on how to set up an Apidea

Click here for how to overwinter an Apidea

Click here for how to feed a winter Apidea

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Remember she matures for 4 days after she emerges then even if she goes straight out and mates she won’t start to lay for another 4 or more days after that. So don’t waste your time looking for eggs till she’s 2-3 weeks old because if she’s not laying before then there’s nothing you can do about it anyway except gnash your teeth.

Have a look at this diagram instead – it’ll help keep your expectations on track.

Click it for a bigger version.

Or click the thumbnail below for a queenrearing timeline for Jenter kit with a Cloake board system

Click here for How to set up your Apidea

Click here for a Queen Rearing Timetable for Jenter kit or grafting with Cloake board cell raiser.

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