keeping me guessing

[Jen]

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

[riverbee]

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. 

[Jen]

I see, thanks 

[riverbee]

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. 

[Jen]

Thanks Riv! This is Very Cool information 

    "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 ~

[LazyBkpr]

 

[Jen]

LOL 

[Papakeith]

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!

[riverbee]

"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!..... 

[Lburou]

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   

[riverbee]

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.

[Lburou]

Thanks RiverBee. 

[riverbee]

you are welcome lee