Beekeeping

   / Beekeeping #61  
Did a lot of work at the bee barn today. Finished up 35 more frames, primed them with foundation and started baiting swarm traps to hang next week! Beautiful sunset on the walk home after working. This barn is such a blessing for the apiary.
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   / Beekeeping #62  
The bees are crazy this morning. Pollen is pouring in. Probably putting up swarm traps next week and looking to do a split soon as well!
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   / Beekeeping #65  
That's what I was curious about. Will more queen bees be born in your hive, and you have to catch her and move her to another hive? What happens to those queen bees if you do not move them? I thought there could only be one queen bee in a hive.
 
   / Beekeeping #66  
EddieWalker said:
That's what I was curious about. Will more queen bees be born in your hive, and you have to catch her and move her to another hive? What happens to those queen bees if you do not move them? I thought there could only be one queen bee in a hive.
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There is only one queen. Colonies make new queens every year for the most part. They will raise 8-10 in fact. However, when the first new queen hatches, she goes through the hive and kills the remaining queens before they emerge. I’m simply taking queen cells and placing them in a new colony, so they will have a new queen emerge I their new home. It’s also called artificial swarming.
 
   / Beekeeping #67  
Does a queen live just one year? So when a new queen is born, and she kills all the others, does that include the existing queen? And then she takes over as the queen for a year, until it happens all over again?

Is a queen cell a bee egg? I have no idea what a bee if born from? But I'm guessing a queen cell in noticeably different then other baby bee's?

I should look for a YouTube on this. LOL
 
   / Beekeeping
  • Thread Starter
#68  
Typically if the old queen is otherwise in good health, she would leave and take about half the colony with her before the new queen hatches. That's called a swarm, there are several reasons this would happen and it's the natural way bees propagate. Making a split is the beekeeper's way of avoiding swarms so we don't loose our bees.

In perfect conditions a queen can live up to 5 years, laying up to 2,000 eggs per day. A typical summer time worker will only live about a month.

A queen cell does look different than a worker or drone cell. Easily identifiable. All bees are hatched from eggs, eggs hatch into larva, larva pupate and emerge as bees. The queen lays unfertilized eggs that will hatch into drones (males) and fertilized eggs that will hatch into workers (females). The worker bees will occasionally take some of the fertilized eggs, put them in the pre-made queen cells and feed the larva that hatches "royal jelly" until it pupates, causing it to become a queen.

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   / Beekeeping #69  
WOW!!! That helps me understand it better. Eventually my wife wants to have bees, but we don't know anything about them. Her goal is to make the garden better, and she says that having bees will do that.
 
   / Beekeeping #70  
Yeah, I have two colonies, from the same original colony, that swarm every year. They fill the hive by mid April, and cast huge swarms. They have been on property since we started. Never treated, never fed, just amazing strong bees. These are the colonies I wish to split. They have good numbers and good genetics.
 
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