Worldwide Beekeeping
Beekeeping => General Beekeeping => Topic started by: Papakeith on June 25, 2014, 12:27:23 pm
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What an interesting couple of weeks.
it seems that the packages we got this spring had a number of dud queens. Lots of supercedures. I was not immune.
Since I had a russian queen coming in that I was going to try, I decided to pull the supercedure cells and requeen with the russian.
I took the supercedure cells and a frame of honey and placed them into a queen castle. then made a nuc out of some honey and a couple of frames of brood from the now queenless colony. I placed the Russian in her cage (cork still in) in the nuc for 4+ days and then uncorked her. 1.5 days later I took a look to find that they had released her and were in the process of balling her on the bottom board of the nuc. I grabbed her and put her back in the cage but I was too late. She perished that night.
Thankfully the supercedure cell rendered a nice looking queen who had started laying. I put those two frames in the queenless hive and walked away.
Should I have done more to introduce the two frames with the new queen to the queenless hive? I kind of figured that she was showing up with her own army if there was trouble.
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Awe Keith, I'm sorry your queen took the bullet. I think that is the number one part of beekeeping that hurts the most for me. I lost one of my purchased queens as well.
Tell me, what does it look like when the bees are balling a queen?
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quite literally a ball or mass of bees with the queen at the center. I saw the mass and brushed the bees apart to see if the queen was there. She was.
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K, good to know, thanks Keith
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Dang, I thought you would have been okay caging her like that. Just another, I can't figure the bees out moment, ha!
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yep. I've also got one hive that swarmed with no signs of the new queen yet. I'm hoping to see something this weekend. If not I'll probably be splitting it up and giving each half a frame of eggs to work with.
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Was the nuc queenless?
Should I have done more to introduce the two frames with the new queen to the queenless hive? I kind of figured that she was showing up with her own army if there was trouble.
Just because the queen had failed and quite laying or slowed she still could be in the hive giving off pheromones as she wanders.
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I've looked through both the hive and the nuc for another queen and see neither a queen-like presence nor any sign that she is around. I suppose the only surefire way to be sure is to evict them all and sort them through a queen excluder.
I'll check on them tonight when I get home. If the nuc hasn't made any use of the eggs it is possible that there exists a queen in the nuc.
As for the colony that I placed the queen with two frames of bees to be sure maybe I should have caged her for a day so i could gauge their reaction to her.
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Reread your first post and possibly bad timing could have played a part. 4 days is a long enough introduction but when you pulled the cork and then they released her. The time this took could be the 1.5 day, so disturbing the hive just as she was being released could cause the bees to do something foolish, like ball the new queen. Sometimes we never really know what happened, but can only speculate.
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Bummer! From what you shared, I would have done the same thing you did. I guess what is supposed to work doesn't always work.
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And so goes beekeeping :)
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Tell me, what does it look like when the bees are balling a queen?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h81E-hlSbQ
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"I took the supercedure cells and a frame of honey and placed them into a queen castle. then made a nuc out of some honey and a couple of frames of brood from the now queenless colony. I placed the Russian in her cage (cork still in) in the nuc for 4+ days and then uncorked her. 1.5 days later I took a look to find that they had released her and were in the process of balling her on the bottom board of the nuc"
keith, how long did you leave the nuc queenless, or did you place the russian queen in right away? just a comment, there really is no need to keep the cork in for four days when releasing a russian queen in a non-russian hive. typically, for non russian hives, not more than 24 hours, (overnight has worked), remove the cork, and check 4 days later. like apis said disturbance of the hive 1.5 days later, but not sure what happened.
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GLOCK- Well That Is Just Sad :sad:
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keith, how long did you leave the nuc queenless, or did you place the russian queen in right away? just a comment, there really is no need to keep the cork in for four days when releasing a russian queen in a non-russian hive. typically, for non russian hives, not more than 24 hours, (overnight has worked), remove the cork, and check 4 days later. like apis said disturbance of the hive 1.5 days later, but not sure what happened.
It was suggested that leaving her in there corked for a few days would help with her acceptance . So much for that :)
The bees I used were from the colony that I thought was queenless. I'll have to take a much closer look now.
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When I requeened three hive in late spring, one queen was found dead on the bottom board, the other two survived. The odd thing is that when I picked her up she looked in perfect health, fat and still soft and plump. I wonder what a dead balled queen looks like? would there be damage on her? do the bees sting her to death? would her wings be torn up?
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"It was suggested that leaving her in there corked for a few days would help with her acceptance . So much for that :)
The bees I used were from the colony that I thought was queenless. I'll have to take a much closer look now."
thanks keith......leaving her corked in there for 4 days is in my HO..... extreme and unnecessary.....
interested if the nuc was queenless?
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Kieth, I've seen bees keeping more than one queen in a hive by balling one or more queens. Maybe you had another queen in there and the bees were giving her a chance to lay.
Last year I found a small swarm had taken over one of my queenless mating NUCs. I found one (new) queen laying, and three queens, (presumed virgin), held captive in three separate balls of bees. My guess about the situation was the bees were allowing their choice of queens to demonstrate her prowess by laying before dispatching the runners up. I saw the bees bearding for three days before looking inside the NUC, so they held the queens in a ball for those days. I rescued them, and two died within 24 hours and the last in 36.
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Interesting and curious story Lee :)
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Re queening an established hive, I also leave the cork in, but only for a day, then pull it and let the bees eat through the candy. If I go to pull the cork and see aggressive behavior, I leave it in and check them a couple days later. I release the queen manually when I see they have accepted her. Usually the one day cork three day release works VERY well. I have held a queen in a cage for up to six days and manually released her on day six.
I have heard that russian queens are often difficult to get accepted in italian or Carniolan hives. I have never had a ruskie queen so cant comment from direct experience.
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Riv- "leaving her corked in there for 4 days is in my HO..... extreme and unnecessary.....
Hi Riv, just wondering why you think 4 days in extreme?
When I introduced my queens, instructions said to check back in four days. So I did and all queens were released one dead. I do believe they were out of there cages in less than 4 days tho
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jen, i meant leaving the cork or cap on over the candy for 4 days. my HO, this is a little on the extreme side. i keep russians/hybrids/mutts and have for a number of years now, and have helped others migrate to russian bees. leaving the cork in/cap on for one day is sufficient (unless you see otherwise*), pulling it, and wait another 3 or 4 days is fine to let the bees release her. the bees are either going to accept her or reject her. i would not directly release a russian queen into a non russian hive, and have not released russian queens directly into russian hives either. these queens are too hard to come by.
*i like to lay the queen cage on top the frames prior to placing her in, to observe how the bees respond to her. if they respond well, i often times remove the cap/cork right away.
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I see, thanks :)
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given keith's posts regarding the balling of his queen, and lee's post on his observations, i thought i might post how abc xyz of bee culture defines it. (from the 41st edition).
i think in part, this is a misunderstood behavior by beekeepers, we automatically think that this is a 'bad' behavior and that the queen is being killed. sometimes she is, but sometimes not, sometimes she is being protected, and different circumstances give different outcomes of this or why the bees do it. hope this will shed some light on the subject.
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Thanks Riv! This is Very Cool information :bee:
"At times balling appears to be a holding process when two or more queens are present in a hive or a swarm and the bees may only seek to keep both alive until some decision is made." example
I think, up to my present bee education, that this quote is soo important for new and all beekeepers. It's giving the bees time to make their own decisions... we humans are impatient in making decisions for the bees. Practicing patience more and more ~
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:t3816:
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LOL :occasion14:
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I had a fun weekend. Bees, bees and more bees.
The topper was that my swarmed hive now has a new homegrown queen laying up a storm. Patience, it seems, is truly a virtue.
The nuc that killed the Russian queen also now has a native queen that finally started laying. Sneaky lil' girl WAS hiding in there .
And
The queen cell that I pulled and finished in my queen castle then returned to the hive is laying as well.
Everyone is queen right.
PLUS, I tried my hand at grafting this weekend. I did 8 larvae and my instructor 10. From the looks of the cells this afternoon when we placed them in the finisher colony I had 5 of 8 that were accepted and he had 6 of 10. It took fair amount of work manipulating the colonies to get the nurse bees yesterday and the finisher colony set up today. Still, I had a great time.
PLUS the new keeps in CT that I've been helping have laying queens now in their colony and their backup nuc.
Just a great weekend all around!
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"The nuc that killed the Russian queen also now has a native queen that finally started laying. Sneaky lil' girl WAS hiding in there ."
thanks keith, was wondering if there wasn't another!
ps. bees, bees and more bees?! absolutely!..... :yes:
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Riverbee, your citation of and link to _ABC XYZ's OF Bee Culture_ is impressive and something new to me. How do you manage to get the quotes, make a pdf and link it to the post?
TIA :)
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lee, thank you, i have sent you a pm on how i did this, in short, any pdf file can be uploaded and posted in threads by clicking on 'attachments and other options'. it really is a valuable option for the forum so that others can download the info and print it off for personal reference and use.
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Thanks RiverBee. :)
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you are welcome lee ;)