New Queens, Hives All Over the Place

 Here's the latest picture of the home yard.

There's been a lot going on and not enough time to write about it and a deficit of pictures to explain.  

But here's one that should explain a little.

These are the queen cells taken from my queenless starter/finisher.  As you can see, 11 of 18 made the cut.  In the queenright starter/finisher, 17 of 18 made it through.  I've decided to use the queenright method from now on.  It's much easier, very simple, and you don't have any of the downsides related specifically to queenless methods.  This small sample size also shows how well it can work for a first timer compared to queenless, however, don't trust just two tests.

After the cells were matured, I got out on a Tuesday morning a few weeks ago and robbed seven hives of all but one frame of brood to have enough brood to make up the mating nucs.  The mating nucs are 3x3 queen castles that I designed and built myself.

In each, I placed an empty drawn comb, a comb of honey, and a frame of brood with adhering bees.

You can see in the picture at the top of the page most of them.  Three are in other places around the property.  After the queens hatched, I removed the queen cells and cell protectors.  The JZBZ cell protectors don't fit over the cell, but they still can protect and be used as a way to attach the cell to the comb.

After checking them a couple times, I can safely say that the vast majority have mated and returned healthy.  I have found one where the queen didn't return and one where the queen has not begun laying.  Out of 28 cells, those are pretty good numbers.  The nucs are all brooding and the first weekend in May, I will begin culling, combining, and figuring out where they will all be going.

My goal is to go into winter with at least 25 hives and the extras will be sold as nucs.  So, not too long and there will be nucs for sale.

Grafting Success!

I had a somewhat exciting week, this past week, Spring Break.  I grafted for the first, second, and third times. 

Sunday night, I made up some cell bars using wax cell cups I purchased from Rossman.  Monday morning, I put them in the hive so the bees could get used to them.  I put 12 cups on at first.

On Tuesday, there seemed like there was going to be a break in the rain after it had rained for two days. During an actual break in the rain, I ran out to my chosen hive and did the manipulations for the Ben Harden Method, acquired the frame to be grafted from, grafted, and placed the cell bar frame back in the hive.  I added six more cups just for fun. 

The Ben Harden method is one in which you use a queenright colony to raise new queens.  To do this, you make two dummies, frames that are just solid wood which kind of concentration the action in the hive to just a few frames in the middle.  You put this setup above a queen excluder.  You then place a frame of pollen, a frame of young brood, and the cell bar frame in the box and nurse bees are supposed to come up from below and care for the new queens.  They are not supposed to reject them because the queen has never set foot on that cell bar frame and thus her scent is not there.  It's managed kind of like an engineered supersedure.

Later in the week, I checked.  Every single one had failed.  No takers.  I had a few ideas why, the rain was on the top of the list.  I should have had more patience.  Instead of nurse bees coming up to tend the brood, they stayed in the main brood nest as it was probably too cold to go meandering about the hive.  Fortunately though, I had placed an empty comb in the broodnest to replace the one I put in the upper box.  But I'll get back to that later.

So I left the cell bar frame in the hive and waited until Saturday when the weather should be excellent.  I made up some more cell bars, another frame with 18 and decided that I would retry the Harden Method and also do a batch with a regular queenless hive.  That frame that I had put in on Tuesday was now the perfect frame to graft from and to use to bait nurses up from below.  All the larvae were pretty uniformly on their first day out of the egg (some eggs remaining) and were the perfect age to be grafted.  Add to that the fact that the cups had been in the hive for half a week and were well polished and ready to go.

It's hard to tell in this picture, but the bees have begun to raise 17 out of the 18 grafted larvae.  Quite a good run.  Remember, this is in a queenright hive which can go about its business with no disruption in brood rearing or queenlessness.

I took pictures of the queenless hive cell bar this morning as well, but my phone focused on the grass in the background rather than the bees so the picture is out of focus.  But it looks almost the same except that they only took 12 of the 18 grafted.  I reason this is at least partly because the cells were not allowed to be polished by the bees before grafting.  You can be assured I will not make that mistake again.

Overall, this was a very successful excercise and one from which I learned greatly.  More updates soon.  In a week, it will be time to make up mating nucs and that is likely to be a monumental task.

As you can see in the picture at the top, the yard looks markedly different.  I've removed most of the real estate from the hives that are not doing what they should be doing at this time of the year.  The middle hive in the left row is the one wherein the Harden Method is being used, and the very back corner one is the queenless one.  Its queen is in the nuc behind the bricks to the left of it.  All the honey stored from last year in the puner hives is being stored on the big nasty hive in the front.  This year, it is the designated honey producer.  It is a very active and healthy hive, but a little too mean to breed from.  Such a shame.

29 mating nucs is going to be a marathon!

How Many Mites?

Here is a picture of the bottom board of a hive I took apart on Saturday.

If you right click and select 'View Image' you may be able to see the number of mites there are on this bottom board.  There are tons, hundreds, maybe as many as a thousand.  This is what I would expect to see on a bottom board from a hive that had died from varroa mites.

But this hive not dead.

This is the hive that I expected to die last fall due to an extremely high mite load.  I remember inspecting this hive and seeing mites everywhere.  I saw them crawling on bees, in cells with brood, crawling across the comb, everywhere.  There were hundreds.

I expected this hive to die.  But it didn't.  Remember, this is a completely treatment free hive.  No treatments ever.  And yet it survives, even with a massive mite load.  Admittedly, it's not doing great, but we shall see what happens.  This is one of the reasons I let hives die on their own, to see exactly how much they can take and if they have what it takes to survive.

The Double Queen Hive Returns!

Latest picture of the home yard: like five minutes ago.

 As you can see, I got the 8-frame hive in today.  And the double wide is a double double.

But back to the double queen hive:

I guess I missed a queen cell when I was in the hive a few days back.  They seem intent on superseding this queen for a third time.  The first one I took and put in a hive that was queenless last year.  The second one is now in a hive of her own.  I think I'm pushing my luck if I don't let this one be.  Plus it's obvious the old queen is not a high performer by herself.  In fact, due to the timing, this new virgin may actually be her granddaughter.  She's certainly different colored, more like the locals than the original or her daughter. 

It may be an interesting trait of this hive though that the old queen is not disposed of even when it's obvious that she's not pulling her weight and I wonder why that is.  I wonder if her daughter or granddaughter will keep it.  I don't think the old queen is laying many eggs at all though she's not yet a drone layer.  Tell me what you think.

The Cube Hive Makes its Debut

Sorry, I don't have a 'what the yard likes like' pic, I keep forgetting lately.  I've been working on expanding my egg operation to two dozen a day.  Actually, you'd probably be able to see the edge of the chicken yard in such a pic.  I have a movable poultry net fence.  It allows the chickens to eat more bugs and less feed, which is good.

But on to the topic du jour, the Parker Cube Hive.

 Here, you can see the basic form of the hive.  It is intended to be all mediums as a 14 frame medium is about the same comb area as a deep.  A 12 (regular) frame deep is heavy as is, without any bees in it at all.  But all I had was deeps with bees on them, so I had to build a deep to use for transition.  The bottom is a purpose built box, bottom attached, 1.5" hole entrance.  Eventually it will probably have a disc entrance on it for skunks.

The top is a Michael Bush style top, just a piece of plywood (though thicker than he uses) with two shims to elevate one end.  Just for fun, it has a bevelled edge on the front, maybe to keep rain and snow out.  I don't know, I didn't design it that way.  I just happen to have a piece of plywood left over from building my chicken coop and it had an angle on it.

I have two hives made up, two purpose built bottoms, two lids, 6 supers, 1 deep.  The purpose in my mind for this project is to see if placing successive boxes with frames at right angles to each other will have any effect.  I'm also wondering if square boxes will have any effect on cluster size.  A side benefit is that for the same comb area, using boxes with extra frames results in significantly shorter hives.

Here's the entrance.  In it, you can see the bottom end of the PF-120 frames.  They have been trimmed to 1.25" end bars.  I put the older queen of the double queen hive from the previous post in this hive.  If I had to guess, I'd say they are eagerly intending to supersede her again as a number of supersedure cells were under construction.  I should keep an eye on this hive to hopefully be able to divide those queen cells up for new hives.

Two Queens, One Hive

Here for your viewing pleasure is something not often seen.  This is a hive with two queens.  Click to see full size.

Now I've heard of cases where a superceded queen will not be killed off and the new queen will lay along side her mother.  But I've never heard of it lasting this long.

Last spring, I bought the marked queen (C shaped marking) from Zia Queenbee.  She ended up escaping upon being released in her new hive and I found her being balled at the entrance of another hive.  She has always looked greasy, I don't know why.  I was not surprised to find that she had been replaced last summer.  In her place I found a new queen, the one you see on the left.  After seeing her, I didn't keep looking.

Surprise surprise this morning, I was checking this hive for the first time this year and I found the old marked queen.  I looked on the other side of the frame and there was the new queen.  I did put the new queen on the same side as the old one so I could get a good picture, but other than that, what you see is what you get.  No tricks, no Photoshop, no special effects.  That is two queens in the same hive for at least six months including over winter. 

Behold, the Parker Cube Hive!

A while ago, I decided to build a set of square hives.  Traditional Langstroth hives are 19 7/8" long and 16 1/4" wide.  I think it had something to do with the size of a wine box at the time. 

So I decided to build a hive that was the same length as it was in width.  Inquiring at Beesource, I discovered that this idea was not new and that there are square hives in other countries.  At some point I discovered while building it in Google Sketchup, that three mediums is about 19 7/8" tall.  Presto, three medium hive is a cube hive.  Coincidentally, it's also approximately equal to three deeps depending on how you calculate the comb area.

Some benefits I'm expecting:  more efficient use of wood, shorter hive, more spherical cluster, bigger hives, and the ability to place successive boxes at 90 degrees to one another.

Here's a picture of a deep I made to help make the transition from deeps to mediums.  12 standard frames fit comfortably.

Here are frames trimmed to 1 1/4".  Notice you can fit 14 frames and not be tight at the ends.

Finally, as I mentioned above, three mediums forms a cube.  It's not precisely a cube on the inside due to the thickness of the wood, but that won't stop me from calling it the Parker Cube Hive.  

Hopefully I'll get the opportunity to utilize them fully this year.

Building hives and More Inspections

I recently ordered an Oshlun stack dado blade.

What you're looking at is 124 (+/-) teeth of fury!  I'm going to use it to cut frame rests and rabbets for hive boxes as well as use it to cut dadoes for dividers in queen castles and nucs.  This is a pretty good quality dado blade and makes good quality stuff.  The cutters have 44 teeth and the chippers have six teeth each.  This makes for a very heavy set and the motor takes about five whole seconds to spin it up.  But it works fantastically, and I'm going to use it a lot as I'm building my new legion of medium boxes.

Here you can see my design for a 4x5 nuc, that's four five frame nucs in one box.  The last thing to add is the dividers.

I did a test run with the dado blade and made some ends for a 6 frame nuc.  All I need to do is cut the sides and make a bottom and lid and it will be ready to go.  Now that I think about it, it would make a perfect example for my first six frame medium nuc, possibly to overwinter.

Finally, here is evidence that given the opportunity, bees will size the entrance how they want it.

This is a hive in my outyard where the bees reduced the entrance even further than I had reduced it.  As you can see, they still didn't close it all the way off.  For context, this hive has a 1 1/2" round entrance near the bottom.

Another hive on this pallet seems to me to be burning too brightly.  By that I mean they are too big and using their stores too fast.  I hope they can slow it down and last the winter.  On the other hand, they are a bit mean, and with that in mind, I doubt I would breed from them.

First Deadout of Winter

Here's today's yard.

 Sad news, today I discovered my first deadout of the winter.  I've gotten better at knowing a deadout without even looking inside.  Bees will be coming and going, but they will be acting more like robbers and in this case, they will be trying to use the lower entrance which this hive never took to.  Around here, dead hives not uncommon for this time of the year, but the reason varies.  Let's look at some of the signs.  What's left of the hive (all the uncapped honey) is located in the back middle of this picture.  I figure any hive able to be out flying through the winter can have all the honey they can carry home.  The hives headed by the queens I ordered from Zia seem do be flying just fine in 45 degree temperatures.

The first thing I found was this in the second box from the bottom.

At first, I thought the hive was queenless because the queen wasn't in this cluster.  There was a hive beetle though.  There was also plenty of honey around the cluster, though it was uncapped.

As I began to take the hive apart and take stock, I found this right at the top of the hive right under the sugar.  Like the lower cluster, they were surrounded by uncapped honey and you can see in this picture just how close it was.  They also had a very healthy supply of pollen.

There the queen is.  She looks like a standard Italian if not just a little dark complected.  This hive was a swarm I caught last spring, and I saw old used queen cells in the hive so I assume this is not the queen that swarmed with the hive.

I also took a good hard look at the bottom board.  That's one of the most important things to look at.  There were about half a dozen beetles and about two dozen mites.  Neither of these things is likely the source of the demise of this hive.  There were dead bees, but not enough to form a solid layer across the bottom.

The primary issue with this hive seems to me to be a divided cluster.  But the question must be asked as to why their population is so low.  I checked my records and this hive was designated SW-NWA-0000-0004 meaning that it was a swarm from around here with unknown parentage.  This hive mysteriously showed up clustered under my comb melting vat last year.  It made it through last year well enough, but had a tough start this spring taking heavy damage from skunk predation.  This apparently triggered a supersedure this spring.  Later on, the hive was healthy enough to harvest three frames of honey from to supply some new nucs.  This hive did show some minor signs of dysentery this spring, but every thing cleared up.  By fall inspection time, they were just about the least provisioned of any of the hives and I put a top feeder on.  They did not take much syrup, and I found what they did take (it was dyed) on one of the combs.  Most of what they had was real honey.

I did my best, but this hive was never a performer.  Perhaps in the future, a hive like this will be placed in a nuc or combined with another hive so that it won't be taking up valuable equipment.  However, at this point, I have plenty of equipment so it's not really an issue.  They ended up being comb babysitters more than anything.  So far, survivors are 10 of 11.  Let's hope there will be very few more deadouts.  It's another big splitting year next year.

Mating Nucs

Here's today's photo, taken just a few minutes ago.

 Today, I'm here to talk to you about mating nucs, specifically of the 'queen castle' variety.

A queen castle is a type of nuc which contains only two or three standard frames.  It's purpose is to provide the function of the mating nuc while eliminating the need for an extra type of frame.  Some nuc designs use half size frames or tiny little topbars.  The question is what to do with these things at the end of the year, or how to get the bees to build on them in the beginning.  With standard sized frames, queen castles eliminate this difficulty.

Its prime use as a mating nuc is generally set up like this.  Standard methods are used to rear queens to the ripe cell stage.  Then, a frame of brood and bees and a frame of stores are placed in the queen castle with the ripe cell.  Later, the nucs are checked to see how the queen is coming along and if she's laying eggs and ready to be sold.  She can be removed and replaced with another cell repeatedly throughout the productive season.  I've been told that the 4x2 versions offer limited space to squeeze the cell in.  But according to my measurements, the three frame version offers a full 5/8" of space with normal frames.  Using narrow endbar frames offers an extra 3/8" on top of that.

Another benefit is for swarm control.  For instance, you go out to do a standard springtime inspection one day and you find a hive that is near to swarming with queen cells on four separate frames.  This presents a fantastic opportunity to get some free bees.  Take the queen and a couple frames and start a nuc with her off to the side.  Then take three of the frames with adhering bees and place each of them in the queen castle in separate compartments.  Add a frame of honey and pollen and an empty frame of comb or foundation.  Close the thing up and wait a couple weeks and you have new nucs.  You have the original queen in her nuc, one queen in the original hive, and three queens in the queen castle.  You can then use these queens to requeen other hives or use the nucs to start new hives.  You can also cut cells out and profit even more by using the method above.

Typical queen castles available at beekeeping supply establishments are the deep 4x2 and the medium 3x3.  These two designs allow just about the same amount of comb space.  Below you can see the design I came up with which in all probability is identical to the one Brushy Mountain offers.  It features a standard sized box which can be used as such during the rest of the year, and three nucs divided by pieces of 1/4" luan plywood.

Here's the detail of the end piece.  The side pieces are simply cut with no special dadoes or rabbets.  The end piece is cut by two 1/4" dadoes and two 3/4" rabbets on the ends.  The frame rest is the standard 3/8" by 5/8" cutout.  All cuts are 3/8" deep from the broad side.

This is the design, but I'm going to be using it a little differently.  I designed it as a medium even though I have all deeps at this point.  But as you know, I'm making the switch to mediums.  I'll build these as deeps and then at some point, I'll begin cutting them down to medium size.  It's a simple three inch difference.  The other part is that I'll make them about 1/4" taller than standard and attach the bottom board semi-permanently in the same way my 10 frame nucs are.

One thing I saw on the Bushkill Farms version was a big circular screened over vent at the upper side of the nuc to draw robbers while the actual entrance is small and located away in the bottom corner.

I'll be building these over Christmas Break, and using them next year to efficiently boost my populations.

Traits for Selecting Breeder Colonies

I found a very insightful post on Beesource.com and decided to repost it here.  The author is a guy who uses the handle Fusion_Power and whose name is Darrel Jones. He says its genesis was Brother Adam.  I thank them both, though Brother Adam is no longer with us.

If you're breeding your own queens (and you should be) it's helpful to know what you're looking for.  Breeding for production is good, but production alone do not bees make.  Read this and use it to help select the best colonies to breed from, then replace hives with unacceptable performance with those new queens.  This is by no means and exhaustive list, nor is it in any order.  Typically, bees are bred for the top three traits, disease resistance, honey production, and gentleness, usually in that order, but not always.  I let winter handle the first one, and generally bees that aren't very disease resistant don't produce well.  So my focus is honey production and gentleness.  Anyway, enjoy.



Traits for Selecting Breeder Colonies

This is not an exhaustive list and its a bit dated. I'm posting it at a request on the chat forum. There is a LOT more that should be in this.

Over the course of several years, I have wished for but never seen a good list of the various traits that can be influenced by a bee breeding program. Following is a list I have compiled of some of the traits of importance to beekeepers. Keep in mind that this is a list of genetically influenced traits, with some comparison of races of bees, not a list of management procedures.

1. EGG LAYING RATE
2. EGG VIABILITY RATE
3. BROOD CYCLE TIME
4. BROOD NURTURING
5. FORAGING AGGRESSIVENESS
6. TIME OF FORAGING
7. DISEASE RESISTANCE
8. PEST RESISTANCE
9. DEFENSIVE BEHAVIOR
10. SWARMING TENDENCY
11. WINTER HARDINESS
12. LIFE SPAN
13. BODY SIZE
14. SENSE OF SMELL
15. HYGIENIC CLEANING BEHAVIOR
16. TIME OF BROOD DEVELOPMENT
17. THRIFT
18. HONEY ARRANGEMENT
19. POLLEN COLLECTION
20. TYPE OF HONEY COLLECTED
21. COMB BUILDING
22. CAPPING STRUCTURE
23. PROPOLIS COLLECTION
24. BRACE COMB CONSTRUCTION
25. ABDOMINAL COLOR
26. ANTENNAE STRUCTURE

Colony strength affects productivity because of the high level of correlation between hive strength and honey production. Egg laying rate, egg viability rate, brood care, brood development time, life span, and several other factors affect colony strength.

A prolific Italian queen can lay about 2,000 viable eggs per day during peak brood rearing. Rates of up to 5,000 eggs per day have been reported for African queens. After watching a colony build up from just a handful of bees in the winter to occupy seven or eight deep brood chambers in the spring, one begins to appreciate just how many eggs are being laid.

Egg viability is affected by inbreeding because of parthenogenesis and the concentration of genetic defects. Only 15 variants of the sex allele have been identified to date. Since a queen mates with 17 drones on the average, at least one or two of them will have identical sex alleles with the queen. When an egg has identical sex alleles, the result is a diploid drone egg that the bees normally destroy shortly after hatching. Genetic code defects cause otherwise normal eggs to be non-viable. This is especially detectable in drone eggs because they contain only one set of chromosomes. Genetic selection must control inbreeding so the egg viability rate does not become abnormally low.

Brood care includes feeding and climate control in the brood nest. Most strains of bees used commercially today show good brood care characteristics. Worker brood development takes 21 days from egg laying to adult. For comparison, African bees take about 19 days. The shorter brood cycle helps explain their rapid colony buildup.

The average worker lives about 35 days during summer. If the average life span were increased to 45 days, colony strength would rise by 20 to 30 percent. Several colonies have been found with above average life spans, but very little work has been done to select long-lived bees.

Disease resistance to brood diseases has been found for the following; American foulbrood, European foulbrood, Sacbrood, and Chalkbrood. There are several other brood diseases caused by viral, bacterial, and fungal agents, but none have as much effect as the first four. Resistance seems to center around hive cleanliness and brood nutrition with emphasis on hygienic behavior which is a tendency to uncap and remove diseased brood. Carniolans have a high average level of resistance to brood diseases and African bees show a similar capacity. Italians show resistance to varying degrees and respond readily to genetic selection.

Nosema, Paralysis, and Septicema are the primary diseases of adult bees. Nosema is especially bad because it affects wintering colonies causing serious damage in Canada and most of the northern United States. Factors affecting resistance include the total number of bees in the colony and the size of the hindgut of individual bees. Italians on average tend to be slightly susceptible to nosema and resistant to paralysis and septicema. Brother Adam indicates that he has found no obvious resistance to nosema except possibly in the Egyptian bee (Apis Mellifera lamarckii). Caucasians tend to be very susceptible to nosema though selected strains exhibit some resistance. Several researchers have noted that the eastern honeybee (Apis Cerana) seems to be almost immune to nosema. Regrettably, Apis Cerana and Apis Mellifera cannot crossbreed.

A moderate level of infestation with tracheal mites results in poor wintering ability. If more than about 30 percent of the workers are infested going into winter, the colony will probably die. Resistance appears to be based on behavioral and anatomical differences. Bees with the highest level of resistance currently are from England where bee populations were decimated in the early 1920's. As the highly susceptible bees were killed, only the resistant colonies survived. The net result is that bees of English origin have a high level of genetic tolerance to tracheal mites. The typical pattern seen when a colony dies from tracheal mites is a colony with a handful of dead bees and almost all the honey stored for wintering still in the hive. What happened to the huge cluster of bees that went into winter? They flew out and died when the temperature was above about 40 degrees. It is heartbreaking to see a huge cluster on the ground in front of a hive with bees crawling slowly away, wings disjointed. After losing most of the adult bees, the few remaining start rearing brood in a desperate attempt to survive. Then comes severe cold weather and the bees won't move from the brood to food located only inches away. The result is a handful of starved bees covering a small patch of brood with a hive still nearly full of honey.

Varroa mites are from Asia where colonies of Apis cerana were the original hosts. Varroa will kill an infested colony within a few years. Only African bees (Apis Mellifera Scutellata) show a high level of resistance. This resistance comes from a shorter brood development time and from actively seeking and killing the mites in a form of grooming behavior. Varroa causes newly emerged bees to be physically smaller than normal and to have short, abnormal wings. Other symptoms include excessive fall swarming, and brood that does not emerge from the cells.

Tropilaelaps Clarae is an external mite that also originated in Asia where they are hosted by Apis dorsata. Though not currently in the United States, we will probably have to deal with them eventually though only in the southern states. Resistance will probably be the same as for Varroa, though this has not yet been tested.

Wax moths can destroy the combs in a weak colony in a short time. Italians tend to be highly resistant because they maintain very strong colonies and aggressively clean the hive interior. They sting and remove wax moth larvae.

Parasitic insects such as hornets, wasps, and members of closely related genera such as spiders actively prey on honeybees by waiting near the hive entrance and grabbing a bee on its way in or out of the hive. Most colonies that aggressively guard and defend the hive will be resistant, but tend to sting beekeepers more often. African bees have developed a unique behavior of flying straight into the hive entrance instead of landing outside and walking in. This reduces their exposure to predators waiting at the entrance. While animals such as frogs, birds, skunks, and bears prey on honeybees, the only resistance bees show is based on strong hive defensive behavior. Guard bees and soldier bees tend to sting more than younger house bees. Guard bees normally stand near the hive entrance and challenge intruders. Soldier bees forage part of the time, then wait in the hive for the unwary intruder - whether man or beast. There is a large variation in the percentage of soldier bees in different colonies and there is some correlation between the percentage of soldier bees and the amount of honey produced. The more often a bee flies outside to forage, the more honey gathered. Regular bee selection has tended to increase the percentage and quantity of active foragers in commercially available strains of bees.

Foraging behavior shows up most in the amount of honey a colony gathers. In some colonies, the bees rush in with a load of nectar, unload, and then rush back out for another load. The bees in other colonies could best be described as lazy. They gather nectar, then return to the hive and lounge around for a while eventually getting around to another foraging trip. A good selection program can rapidly affect this level of genetic variation. African bees forage earlier in the morning, later in the evening, and more aggressively than European types.

Swarming is the natural means of reproduction for honeybees. Crowding is a primary cause of swarming and some colonies show more tolerance to crowding than others. Swarming is also influenced to a great degree by the climate and nectar flow characteristics. In general, areas having a long warm period in early spring with intermittent nectar flows and rainy periods that confine the bees to the hive will have the most intense swarming. By contrast, those areas having a long and cool buildup period and a sudden, intense nectar flow will experience swarming to a lesser degree. Regardless of location, swarming is one of the unique activities of bees that must be controlled to produce honey. According to Brother Adam, Greek bees (Apis Mellifera Cecropia) show the least inclination to swarm.

Winter hardiness is required in all areas of the United States and Canada but is of less importance in the southern United States. Carniolans show a good wintering ability as also does the intermissa race group. Brother Adam reports that Anatolian and cyprian bees show the best winter hardiness which is surprising because of their mediterranean origin. Italians have a less developed wintering ability which has prevented them from being imported into areas that experience extremes of cold in winter. Bees of the intermissa race group range up to the Arctic Circle which indicates that crossbreeding and selection with these hardy bees could dramatically improve wintering ability.

Body size and anatomical structure varies among different race groups. Currently, the largest bee is from the Rif Mountains of Morocco (Apis Mellifera major nova). Some of the African races tend to be the smallest. Tongue length, leg length, abdominal size, wing size, and virtually all anatomical features show some variation.

Tongue length and wing size have a significant effect on the honey crop. Antennae structure affects the sense of smell and touch and possibly other senses that we do not fully understand. This affects the bee's sense of orientation in finding the right hive, and affects foraging behavior because the bee can smell nectar at a greater distance. Drone antennae are much more sensitive than worker antennae. Most other anatomical features are of little importance because they do not significantly influence the honey crop.

The time of brood development is genetically determined with races such as carniolans having an abrupt spring buildup and caucasians having a long slow summer buildup. This is of importance because a strain that reaches peak development at the beginning of the major nectar flow gathers the most honey.

Thrift is the tendency to raise brood at the right time to gather honey and to slow down or stop brood rearing when there is no nectar flow. Most parts of the United States experience a major spring nectar flow followed later by a fall flow. This requires a corresponding spring peak of brood rearing and another peak in the fall. Italians show a tendency to such a development cycle but are unthrifty because they continue to raise large amounts of brood through the summer between flows. Bees adapt rapidly to an area when selection is used, or adapt more slowly when natural selection occurs. By one estimate, about 50 to 100 years of living and surviving in a given area results in an adapted strain. Maximum thrift is obtained when bees are genetically adapted to the local nectar flow conditions.

Honey arrangement and type of honey collected vary considerably with Italians tending to collect light colored honey and to store it above and out of the brood nest. In one instance, I had a colony of Italians beside a colony of german descent. The Italians gathered three shallow supers of beautiful golden honey while the germans gathered two supers of dark bad tasting honey. Carniolans also tend to collect lighter colored honey.


Some races of bees hoard pollen more aggressively. This is of importance where bees are used for pollination. The previously mentioned german bees collected and stored twice as much pollen as the Italians. They crowded the brood nest with pollen and stored pollen in every super of honey rendering it unfit for use as chunk comb honey. If pollination were of primary importance, then these bees would have been excellent. This trait can be selected for fairly rapidly by simply measuring the amount of pollen collected by a colony relative to the amount of brood in the colony and comparing with other similar colonies.

Comb and capping structure vary considerably. Size and length and cell angle from horizontal all vary by race and by strain. Cappings range in color from gray to white and in shape from flat to ridged to domed. Italian cappings are generally flat and white with raised ridges over the surface of the comb. Brother Adam's buckfast bees build white slightly dome shaped cells which improves the appearance of comb and chunk comb honey. White cappings are a result of an air gap between the cell cap and the honey in the cell. Dark cappings result when there is no air gap. Brood cappings and drone cell cappings for most races are dome shaped although there is considerable variation on this point. Some members of the intermissa race group add propolis to the wax used for cappings. This gives a dirty gray capping which ruins comb honey.

Calmness is the ability to stay fast on a comb during examination without nervous motion. Carniolans tend to be very calm with Italians less so. German black bees tend to be very nervous and jittery. I have opened hives that no amount of smoke would calm and I have opened others so calm that smoke was not even needed. Selection work for good temper shows conclusively that bees can be gentle and outstandingly productive. Note that the buckfast strain currently available in the United States is more aggressive than the strain Brother Adam was propagating 30 years ago. This appears to be the result of a greater focus on breeding for productivity and disease resistance.

Propolis collection and use varies considerably with Caucasians being heavy users and Egyptian bees using none. The average Italian or carniolan colony collects much more propolis than beekeepers would like. There is some conjecture that propolis collection may be connected to wintering ability. One of the greatest improvements we could make in bees today would be to reduce the amount of propolis collected. Unfortunately, very few selection programs have emphasized this much-needed trait.

Brace and bridge comb is built between combs and causes headaches for beekeepers because moveable combs become almost unmovable. This can be especially messy during spring inspection when brood combs have to be scraped and pried out of position. There is enough variation in this tendency that selection results in significant reduction in these structures. Brother Adam records that cyprian bees build very little bridge and brace comb.

Bee color varies from very light yellow to orange to brown to black. Bee hair color ranges from white to gray to yellow to black. Bees that are selected with color being a major emphasis invariably lose characteristics of greater importance such as honey gathering ability. A strain descended from Italians and known as golden Italians was developed several years ago but never achieved commercial importance because they didn't produce enough honey and didn't winter well. I have a much greater preference for productive bees than for pretty bees.

This list is by no means complete. According to one reference, the honeybee genome contains over 30,000 genes and each gene could have innumerable variations. Almost all the items I have listed are controlled by large numbers of genes. Bees adapt genetically to an area over a period of years based on survival of the fittest. The amount of genetic variation in honeybees shows that nature is a very harsh taskmaster. There is no absolute best bee, just a better adapted bee.

Feeding Sugar

Here is the latest picture of the home yard.

 Not the clearest, but you can see that many of the trees have lost their leaves, but the cherry in front of the yard has just started.  Got the hole filled where I dug out the rock in the back as well.

As I've mentioned a few times, we had a really wet spring, and a really dry hot summer leading to there being very little stored honey in the hives and necessitating taking action and feeding them.  I fed through the fall with 3:2 sugar syrup and now that they're not longer taking syrup, I'm feeding with granulated sugar.  Granulated sugar has some goods and some bads.  The goods are that the bees can take it even when it's cold, it doesn't cause robbing, and it helps absorb moisture in the hive.  The bads are that the bees don't always take it and they might just clean it out like any other refuse.

The shims that I use (which I lovingly refer to as 'Parker Shims') make a good space to pile sugar on top of a paper towel.  To the left in the picture below, there is a frame feeder and it is full up with sugar as well. We'll see how this turns out.

Skep Beekeeping in the Heathland, Lower Saxony

Any beekeeper simply must watch these videos.  They present a fantastic view of how beekeeping was done in skeps.  Surely it did not start out this well managed, like today's beekeeping, this video demonstrates the result of centuries of beekeeping and management based on tradition and innovation.









See for yourself how this type of beekeeping shaped our current understanding of beekeeping.  See how things are done more or less the same, and completely different.  Notice how many more products of the hive this operation produces than just honey.

It thought it was interesting that they use wax essentially as a savings account as it's really the only product that can be stored indefinitely without diminishing in quality.