how do you go about raising queen honey bees and then get them into an empty hive ?
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Tipping Tree Farm, the small diverse farm in Colton raises bees and honey in addition to a variety of veggies, and eggs.
Question by rick m: how do you go about raising queen honey bees and then get them into an empty hive ?
I have access to royal jelly along with dozens of hives (active and empty). How do I establish new hives? I’m overseas and can’t speak/read the language well enough to ask or use the library. Thanks
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2 Responses to how do you go about raising queen honey bees and then get them into an empty hive ?
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Here is a good site.
http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/dpi/nreninf.nsf/childdocs/-89E7A8DAFEA417624A2568B30004C26A-C6A014FC88F23F19CA256BC700811628-26181E79F5B05B3F4A256DEA0027399A-8A525202E1C15A04CA256F10001C14B6?open
Beekeepers often find that some honey bee colonies produce more honey than others. This can happen even though the colonies are all in the one apiary with the same conditions and types of flora. Often these production differences are a result of variations in the strain of bee and the quality of the queen in the individual colonies.
Beekeepers can change the strain (or type) of bee in a colony, by removing the queen and replacing her with a queen of the desired strain. This procedure is known as requeening a colony. Requeening is also used to replace queens that are old or have reduced egg laying capacity.
Laying queens may be bought from a queen breeder, or they may be reared by any beekeeper who has a good understanding of bee behaviour, bee handling and beekeeping.
This information note describes basic procedures for the rearing of honey bee queens (also known as queen cell raising).
People inexperienced in handling bees should first read the Agriculture Note AG1240 ‘Safe beekeeping practices’. It is essential that adequate protective clothing, including a bee veil, is worn and techniques for safe handling of bees are understood before opening hives.
Natural queen raising by honey bees
Queens are raised from the same fertilised female eggs, as are workers bees. When newly hatched, a female larva is neither queen or worker caste. There are small differences in the composition of royal jelly fed to larvae destined to be a queen or a worker. The variation in diet occurs from the time of hatching of the larvae. On the third day after hatching, a major difference in diet occurs when pollen is included in the diet of female larvae destined to become a worker.
All this means is that it is important to use larvae under the age of 24 hours when rearing queens. Larvae of this age will have had minimal exposure to worker diet.
Queens are raised by honey bee colonies in specially built queen cells. These are near vertical, peanut-shaped beeswax cells that have an opening that faces downwards. Queen cells may be found on the edges and/or surface of the comb. They are only built when required and are not always present in the hive.
The base of the queen cell is known as the ‘cell cup’. During natural queen raising, the queen may lay an egg in the cup before the walls of the cell are fully built by the worker bees. (The laying of eggs in cell cups does not apply when bees raise queens under the emergency impulse.
Truth Beyond All
August 6, 2011 at 10:32 pm
It’s kind of complicated. My dad is a beekeeper and he raises queens. This is what he does; he pulls a frame of brood which has newly hatched eggs. He takes the larva out of the comb with a special hook and deposits it into a queen cup, which is a small wax cup that he has placed a drop of royal jelly into. The queen cups are attached to a wooden bar that once he has deposited larva into all the cells it is placed into a small hive that has no queen. The bees are not allowed out ot this hive for several days. They will take over the process of feeding the larva and building up the cell to accommodate the queen. Now here it is important to know just how many days it takes for a queen to hatch, it’s something like 28 days but I’m not sure. A couple of days before the queens hatch, the queen cells, which have been enlarged and capped, are removed from the hive they have been in and each one is placed into a seperate “nuke” hive. The queens are then checked in a few day to ensure that they have hatched. In about a week she will leave the hive and mate. About 7 to 10 days after mating she will to begin to lay eggs. At this point she is ready to be caught and placed into a new hive. Placing her into a new hive needs to be done using a small box with some sugar candy blocking the exit. This will give the bees a chance to get used to her before she is released into the hive. If you relaese her directly into the hive the bees will kill her.
This is the really simpliflied version of how it is done. You really need the proper equipment, nuke boxes have to be stocked with bees, and an indepth understanding of how bees work is a necessity.
stoneytreehugger
August 6, 2011 at 11:31 pm