A friend has got a beehive in my apiary and I’ve been going out when they do their inspections.
Yesterday she pulled a frame out and spotted the queen instantly!
Can you see her?
The queen bee is the mother of all the bees in the hive. She can lay a massive 2500 eggs a day at peak. The majority of these will turn into worker bees with a few percent being drones.
The queen is visibly bigger than the other bees. She looks so easy to see once you’ve seen her you wonder how you ever missed her. They can be quite hard to spot though.
The idea is to mark them with special paint so they stand out more clearly. There is a special colour code. This year is green. The code is WYRGB. Remember it as What?! you raise great bees! White, yellow, red, green, blue.
However I hadn’t taken my queen marking kit out yesterday to mark her so we just took a photo or two instead and then Angela carefully put the frame back in the hive.
A queen is essential to your hive – without one the bees will not survive as they can not make new bees. If they have eggs laid they can make a new queen. This takes 16 days from the egg being laid in the bottom of a honeycomb cell. It is fed lots of royal jelly which is a milky white substance and after 8 days it is capped. Queen cells are bigger than worker cells: the reason why is obvious when you see the size difference. The new queen then hatches after 16 days.
If there is still a queen in the hive then she will swarm as the bees cap the cell taking a large number of bees with her off to find a new home.
You can buy his book here at Amazon Honeybee Democracy
it’s a brilliant read for anyone interested in bees and will help you make and place the ideal bait box. Honeybees make decisions collectively–and democratically. Every year, faced with the life-or-death problem of choosing and traveling to a new home, honeybees stake everything on a process that includes collective fact-finding, vigorous debate, and consensus building. In fact, as world-renowned animal behaviorist Thomas Seeley reveals, these incredible insects have much to teach us when it comes to collective wisdom and effective decision making. A remarkable and richly illustrated account of scientific discovery, Honeybee Democracy brings together, for the first time, decades of Seeley’s pioneering research to tell the amazing story of house hunting and democratic debate among the honeybees.
In the late spring and early summer, as a bee colony becomes overcrowded, a third of the hive stays behind and rears a new queen, while a swarm of thousands departs with the old queen to produce a daughter colony. Seeley describes how these bees evaluate potential nest sites, advertise their discoveries to one another, engage in open deliberation, choose a final site, and navigate together–as a swirling cloud of bees–to their new home. Seeley investigates how evolution has honed the decision-making methods of honeybees over millions of years, and he considers similarities between the ways that bee swarms and primate brains process information. He concludes that what works well for bees can also work well for people: any decision-making group should consist of individuals with shared interests and mutual respect, a leader’s influence should be minimized, debate should be relied upon, diverse solutions should be sought, and the majority should be counted on for a dependable resolution.
An impressive exploration of animal behavior, Honeybee Democracy shows that decision-making groups, whether honeybee or human, can be smarter than even the smartest individuals in them.
My bait box worked this year.
My bait box was made last year for placing in a church yard where there were bees. We didn’t catch a swarm and the box ended up in my shed over winter. In spring I needed the room in my allotment shed and so shoved the box out on to the sides of the compost bin next to the shed. I was planning on taking it to my in laws garden to put on their flat roof garage but one Saturday morning I had a call from Andy on the allotment telling me there were bees going in to the bait box. I went out and sure enough, bees were moving in! There’s no sign of eggs yet which is a worry but I am still hopeful and will be inspecting them again very soon.
Nic had made me a bait box last year to leave at the churchyard where we knew there were bees. We didn’t get a swarm last year so it spent the winter in my shed. As I’ve filled the shed to the brim with other things it’s had to come outside. I have been meaning to take it up the road – a few hundred meters from our apiary – and put it on a flat garage roof. However, as you can see some bees have found it anyway.
I’ve just been out lookign at my bees and swapped one hive’s entrance block for a bigger one as it was congested.
Came in and having a brew saw a link to this video
It’s a square top bar hive.
You could put wires across the bars to give the comb more support.
Another great bee video
A Vortex of Honey Bees as they Swarm
A great download book – At the hive entrance – this book will give you the answers to so many questions by just observing the behaviour of Honey bees at their hive without disrupting them.
From experience the sting on my thumb hurt most. I suspect I didn’t get the sting out and then bent my thumb forcing the poison in the sting into my thumb,
Honeybee Democracy £19.95
Honeybees make decisions collectively—and democratically. Every year, faced with the life-or-death problem of choosing and traveling to a new home, honeybees stake everything on a process that includes collective fact-finding, vigorous debate…
Check out you’ve got the most up to date copies of leaflets from beebase
Advisory Leaflets:
Managing Varroa pdf (Last updated Dec 2013)
Small Hive Beetle pdf (Last updated Dec 2013)
Foulbrood Disease of Honey Bees pdf (Last updated May 2013)
Tropilaelaps: Parasitic Mites of Honey Bees pdf (Last updated Dec 2013)
Common Pests, Diseases and Disorders of the Adult Honey Bee (pdf) (last updated Dec 2013)
The National Bee Unit pdf (Last updated May 2009)
– Please note this leaflet is no longer available in hard copy.
Best Practice Guidelines:
Beginning in 2010 the National Bee Unit is putting together a series of Best Practice Guidelines, which will cover the essentials of the craft of beekeeping. These will be placed on BeeBase as they come available.
Best Practice Guideline No. 1 – The Essence of Beekeeping (Updated February 2014)
Best Practice Guideline No. 2 – Handling and Examining a colony of bees (created August 2011)
Best Practice Guideline No. 3 – Apiary and hive hygiene (updated September 2011)
Best Practice Guideline No. 4 – Disease recognition (created August 2011)
Best Practice Guideline No. 5 – Advice for obtaining honey bees (created August 2011)
Best Practice Guideline No. 6 – Spring Checks (updated February 2014)
Best Practice Guidelines No. 7 a) – Feeding Bees – sugar (created July 2012)
b) – Feeding Bees – water (created July 2012)
c) – Feeding Bees – pollen and substitutes (created July 2012)
Best Practice Guideline No. 8 – Sale of Honeybee Nuclei (created March 2012)
Best Practice Guideline No. 9 – Small hive beetle – What you need to know (created April 2012)
Best Practice Guideline No. 10 – Bee Improvement (created July 2012)
Best Practice Guideline No. 11 – Varroa (created July 2012)
