The Rosamund II Rockettes doing their Fan Dance
In the mean time, back at Lucretia II's abode, where all appears serene...
Guess what I found.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Tricking bees
Useful information found at The BioBees forum
Hives can be moved even a relatively short distance if the entrance in the new position is covered with a few branches/leaves. In effect, it is as if a tree has fallen over and the bees living inside it need to re-orientate to a slightly new position.
Hives can be moved even a relatively short distance if the entrance in the new position is covered with a few branches/leaves. In effect, it is as if a tree has fallen over and the bees living inside it need to re-orientate to a slightly new position.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Blueberry harvest
This is it for this year. All from one bush.
We started putting bushes in about 3 years ago. We found a single variety (Misty) at Lowe's and my friend, Ann, gave us another one for pollination purposes. (And because she's thoughtful like that.) These came from the Ann bush (Bright Eyes variety). It was already bigger than the one from Lowe's when it got here, so, I expect it was older.
We have since added Bright Blue, Climax and Austin varieties to the row long the fence on the left side of the back yard.Whenever we order plants by mail and need to fill out an order, we get a blueberry bush.
The Bright Eyes is about hip height on me. All the others are more like knee high. I saw a website a couple of years ago that talked about the ages of bushes relative to when they produce, but I'm thinking that it is more size than age.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Italians do love oregano
I would like to pinch the oregano so that it is bushier for us to cook with. But every time I start to do it, there's already a party going on and I don't want to spoil things.
Made me laugh
In part because Chuck and I are both such novices at vegetable gardening and we have started doing it at or after the half century mark. I have loved messing with flowers ever since I first put grocery store geraniums in a pot and they didn't die, but had only had some herbs before this experiment began.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Monday, June 11, 2012
Explaining queen bees
Workers and queens have a really complex arrangement.
Queens are fertilized by several drones in a short period of time. They may make more than one mating flight, but don't continue mating after that initial frolicsome time when she is young and lithe.
Once she gets situated in a hive, laying eggs, she tends to stay put.
UNLESS, the workers choose to make new queens. They determine when new queens are produced. And the old queen doesn't get her feelings hurt, because in spite of the language used in beekeeping, bees are communists. The good of the many outweighs everything else for a bee. Even the queen.
Queens have a spermatheca, which is a very specialized organ. It allows her to lay fertilized or unfertilized eggs An odd part of that is that the unfertilized eggs produce males/drones.
Workers determine the size of the cells to build in a comb. They make larger cells if they think they need to produce more drones because, apparently, boy bees need bigger rooms. (They also take longer to develop.) So the queen knows by the size of the cell she is laying in whether to fertilize that egg or not.
All hatched eggs get royal jelly, produced by a gland in the hypopharynx of the workers, for a day. Larvae that are going to be queens get all royal jelly all the time. Drones and workers get switched to honey and pollen after that first day. All that royal jelly causes the queens' ovaries to develop into functional organs.
If the workers have decided that they need a new queen, they will have her lay fertilized eggs in queen cups and then stuff those larvae with royal jelly until they cap the cups. And the queen cells are very obvious. They look like peanuts hanging off the comb. I think they even have royal jelly snacks in the queen cells with them.
Usually, if they are planning to swarm, they make queen cells on the bottom of the combs. If they just think the old queen needs replacing, they make supercedure cells up in the main body of the combs. So, beekeepers will talk about supercedure cells or swarm cells meaning queen cells in the indicated location.
Supercedure happens when the queen is old or weak or generally falling down on the job.
Swarming happens when there are more bees than the hive can hold. Or they are just so full of life and there is so much good forage that they feel expansive.
When they swarm, the old queen takes a contingent of workers and goes to look for new digs, leaving the old, established hive to her daughter.
The first queen to emerge may rip open her sisters' cells, ending competition. Or she may wait to see if they actually hatch, then they fight to the death. I'm not sure if the workers get involved in that decision or not.
About a week later, she makes her mating flight(s), flying about a mile from her hive. When she is through collecting DNA, she comes back and starts laying eggs according to the plan of the workers.
Drones fly a mile and a half to drone zones where they off their DNA to any queen in search of a little booty, so queens don't mate with their brothers. Drone Zone would be a great name for a pickup bar.
Queens are fertilized by several drones in a short period of time. They may make more than one mating flight, but don't continue mating after that initial frolicsome time when she is young and lithe.
Once she gets situated in a hive, laying eggs, she tends to stay put.
UNLESS, the workers choose to make new queens. They determine when new queens are produced. And the old queen doesn't get her feelings hurt, because in spite of the language used in beekeeping, bees are communists. The good of the many outweighs everything else for a bee. Even the queen.
Queens have a spermatheca, which is a very specialized organ. It allows her to lay fertilized or unfertilized eggs An odd part of that is that the unfertilized eggs produce males/drones.
Workers determine the size of the cells to build in a comb. They make larger cells if they think they need to produce more drones because, apparently, boy bees need bigger rooms. (They also take longer to develop.) So the queen knows by the size of the cell she is laying in whether to fertilize that egg or not.
All hatched eggs get royal jelly, produced by a gland in the hypopharynx of the workers, for a day. Larvae that are going to be queens get all royal jelly all the time. Drones and workers get switched to honey and pollen after that first day. All that royal jelly causes the queens' ovaries to develop into functional organs.
If the workers have decided that they need a new queen, they will have her lay fertilized eggs in queen cups and then stuff those larvae with royal jelly until they cap the cups. And the queen cells are very obvious. They look like peanuts hanging off the comb. I think they even have royal jelly snacks in the queen cells with them.
Usually, if they are planning to swarm, they make queen cells on the bottom of the combs. If they just think the old queen needs replacing, they make supercedure cells up in the main body of the combs. So, beekeepers will talk about supercedure cells or swarm cells meaning queen cells in the indicated location.
Supercedure happens when the queen is old or weak or generally falling down on the job.
Swarming happens when there are more bees than the hive can hold. Or they are just so full of life and there is so much good forage that they feel expansive.
When they swarm, the old queen takes a contingent of workers and goes to look for new digs, leaving the old, established hive to her daughter.
The first queen to emerge may rip open her sisters' cells, ending competition. Or she may wait to see if they actually hatch, then they fight to the death. I'm not sure if the workers get involved in that decision or not.
About a week later, she makes her mating flight(s), flying about a mile from her hive. When she is through collecting DNA, she comes back and starts laying eggs according to the plan of the workers.
Drones fly a mile and a half to drone zones where they off their DNA to any queen in search of a little booty, so queens don't mate with their brothers. Drone Zone would be a great name for a pickup bar.
Handy way to make a split
(Not that we are planning on doing much of that, but just in case...)
Found in the BioBees forum Natural beekeeping discussions & questions
You move the
original hive to a new site a few metres away on a day when the foragers are
working well.
Find
the comb with the queen on (check there are no queen cells as well) & put it
& her into an empty hive placed on the original site.
The
older foraging bees will naturally migrate to the old site & queen.
The
young nurse bees haven't taken any orienteering flights so will stay with the
brood combs on the new site.
So
in effect very similar to a natural swarm.
It
wouldn't hurt to give the old queen a comb or two of honey
as well if there's
spare.
Unlike
a natural swarm the bees wont be gorged with honey.
Possibly
brush bees from another comb or two to reinforce her artificial swarm but you
don't want to leave the brood combs short of bees, as they have a lot of brood
to rear.
I
would only do it when the weather is warm & when there is a good flow.
The
old queen should be able to feed themselves if so, although if the nectar flow
stops may require more food.
More
care with regards to the young nurse bees as they have few foragers & lots
of brood to feed, so if stores run low you will need to feed them.
After
more thought if your hive is packed with brood & has little honey it might
be better to just perform a straight split unless you want to feed sugar.
Knowing
how to perform a shook swarm is a good thing to know though for future
reference.
It's
a recognised way of reducing the risk of brood diseases & in cases where
brood disease is present a recognised treatment in some countries.
The
only differences in instances of infection are all the bees are shook onto new
clean bars/frames in a new or flame sterilised hive, & all the brood &
combs destroyed.
Brood diseases are caused by
infected stores & comb, through contamination from the dead larvae, not by
adult bees. Although they do spread the disease around the hive if you remove
them from the source & force them to build new comb with any surplus honey
they have in their gut you break the cycle.
Checking in with the bees
Since they swarmed, I have tried to give the new queens new names, but it just isn't working.. They are named for the hives and you'll just have to consider them Lucretia II and Rosamund II, III, IV, etc, down through the generations. Lucretia and Rosamund Prime are in Frank's bee yard and doing well.
These are the Lucretia hive. The bar with the little nublet of comb is the 9th one from the back.
These are Rosamund. The nublet is on the 10th bar from the rear.
There are still a lot of drones in there, but I occasionally see workers hustling them up toward the front. Some of the drones sit very still, hoping to be ignored, I guess. But I don't think it's working.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Reminding myself
From Philip Chandler, the Barefoot Beekeeper, in the BioBees forums:
A good general principle with bees is - if in doubt, do nothing. More often than not, the bees are doing what needs to be done. The exceptions are almost always when they are trying to correct a situation created by a human.
BTW - sorry to correct you, Barbara, but a queen is three days in the egg, five as a larva and seven to eight sealed inside pupating, for a total of 15-16 days to emergence. She will usually mate 5-10 days after emergence, but it can be longer if the weather is unsuitable.
A good general principle with bees is - if in doubt, do nothing. More often than not, the bees are doing what needs to be done. The exceptions are almost always when they are trying to correct a situation created by a human.
BTW - sorry to correct you, Barbara, but a queen is three days in the egg, five as a larva and seven to eight sealed inside pupating, for a total of 15-16 days to emergence. She will usually mate 5-10 days after emergence, but it can be longer if the weather is unsuitable.
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