first time introducing unmated queens

Hello readers,

No weather report or hive report today, instead I'm going to go over my plans on how to introduce an unmated queen.

Method 1

I'm going to make a split of one hive using only one frame, and adding some bees.  I'll be inspecting my Piet Deweer swarm today and hope to transfer one frame of capped brood with bees to a nucleus hive where I'll release an unmated queen.  I'll spray the bees with water to add them to the nucleus and the queen is now in a queencage inside the box the bees are going to be moved to.

The box has some drawn out comb, to let the bees store food in and to give the queen, once mated, a chance to start laying.  It also has some sugar dough.

The frame we'll add to it must have capped and emerging bees, and hopefully some honey and pollen.

If not I might add a second frame with pollen and nectar.

1. I'll be taking the queen in her cage out of the nucleus and will lay her on top of the frames in the cage.
2. Once I have transferred one frame of brood with bees into the box I'll put the queencage on top of that frame, to see how the bees react to her.
3. When the bees seem to be ok with the queen, as in not balling her, I'll then throw in 2 more frames of bees on top of the queen provided the frame had food stores; If not I'll add another frame with bees that contains stores.
4. In case the bees are shaken on top of the queen I'll spray them with water and wait for a bit to see if they too are ok with the queen.
5. I'll release the queen from the cage and let her walk into the hive.
6. The box will be moved to another location on the same apiary, allowing the older bees to fly back to their own hive.  And to let the queen go on a mating flight when she's ready.

As you see I'll not be leaving it up to the bees to free the queen, a risky business, but hopefully it will work.

This method can be used since the nucleus has the same size frames as my beehive I'll be using bees from.  In fact, if you only use one frame of bees to move into the nucleus, you could shake  (young) bees in there from another hive.

Method 2

I don't have Warré frames in my operation (yet) so I had to come up with another method of introducing this unmated queen.  I consulted the mighty tool that the world wide web is and came up with 'a shook swarm'.

This shook swarm will be shaken directly into the Warré hive.  The first box has frames in it, some are built out.  The second box is empty to allow me to shake the bees in more easily I'll keep this hive closed to let the bees form a unit over a periode of 2 nights:

• Day 1: shake the bees in, keep the box closed and move it to it's location or keep it stored in a cool place
• Day 2: don't disturb the box, keep it closed
• Day 3: Ensure the box is in it's permanent location and open the hive early morning or late night.

Here are the steps I'll take for this method:

1. Prepare the hive (food, drawn comb, empty frames)
2. Queen in the cage on top of the frames from box one in the empty box 2 (super).
3. Take young bees from (different) hive(s) and shake 3 full frames of bees in the top box, making sure you don't shake the queen from any other hive in there.
4. Spray the bees with water and see how they react to the queen.
5. If the qeen is accepted close up the hive and store it (on it's permanent location or cool) for the desired time before opening it.

Footage:

Here you can see how I did it:

Closing thoughts

I know there is a ton of different ways to go about introducing unmated queens and that most beekeepers will use mating hives to make sure the queen is laying before introducing her to a colony, this greatly increases the chances of acceptance.  As it is I don't have any kind of mating nuc or other box on hand, so I chose to go about it in two different ways.

I'll keep you updated when I check on these hives, be it through the BuzzBox app that tells me (or doesn't) that the hive sounds ok in the coming days, or through a full inspection later on.

The hive I used to take the bees away from had a queen on one of the frames, I captured her and wanted to mark her afterwards, but that didn't work out very well:

That's it for today!

Bob Out

Update so far

Hello readers,

For all sorts of reasons I didn't make time to keep posting updates on here... I hope I can make more time available for that and today is my first effort to bring you up to speed.

I have a ton of video to sift through but I'm not going to use that as an excuse not to put reports up, so no footage in this post...  Who am I kidding?  I'll put up a video I shot with my phone that captured how a swarm is walking into the hive I shook them in, but more on that later.

Weather Report:  

So the fight between winter and spring is over, but the summer is having trouble coming through.  We had 2 very hot dry days already, too dry for the bees so there's always something to complain about...

Where in normal circumstances we have 2 periods of nectar flow here I think we had a rather short burst of one where everything bloomed at once.  I'm hoping the 2nd flow is still to come, but if the weather keeps changing around like it is this could be a verry difficult year for the bees.

Hive Report:

Apiary one:

Simplex Nuc:
In the last report I stated I wanted to make more splits out of this hive.  I did not do so, I didn't even give it a full inspectoin yet, so there could be swarmcells in there...  What I did do is take out one frame of brood to use in a trap-out.  I substitued the frame with one that has a nicot queenrearing box attached to it.  I'm going to leave that in the hive without using it.  The idea is to let the bees build the comb out around the nicot system and then put it to use next year to make myself some queens.
I then moved a frame with eggs and nectar to the box underneath it, to encourage the bees to move down, something they don't seem to be doing on their own.
My plans for this hive is to open it again next monday if needed to remove yet another frame of brood for the trap-out.  If the trap-out does not need it, or if I have another sollution (a queen) for the trap-out I'll leave this hive alone untill I'm ready to prepare for winter.  At that point I'll size up the colony and it's stores to provide some additional food if needed.
Above this hive I have installed a box with a swarm;

Eveline's bees:
The hive itself is a simplex size box, just one at the moment, the roof has number 4 on it, but rather than giving it a number I gave it the name of the person that called me out to come and collect the swarm.
It was hanging very low, and didn't take to long to collect:

I shook the bees out on the sheet from the branch, scooped some up from behind the bottom concrete board of the fence and tossed them on the sheet, time did the rest.

I shook them out inside a Simplex box and they have been there since may 17th.

I have only peeked at them once or twice and can say the amount of bees has not increased.  They have moved from the left side to the right side of the hive and are, unlike I'm used to for smaller colonies, unfriendly.  I know this since I have put the buzzbox app to work near this hive and after getting the 'missing queen' result I panicked a bit and opened them up.  I knew as soon as the bees could get to me that was not a good idea, an indication the buzzbox reading was right...  Realising I didn't have time to do a full inspection AND come up with a sollution I closed them back up and have yet to do a new inspection.  Could be I do that today, could be I don't find the time for it.
I did ask around and am going to collect two unmated queens soon, so when I have them I might do an inspection then.  Even if the swarm had an unmated queen in it, something could have happened to her, if not, she should be laying by now.  So if I don't find brood, I might put in a virgin queen to see what happens.
On a side note, this hive has a screened bottom with a board underneath, I have found some bees on there on occasion and on monday june 3rd one bee had a varroa mite on her! 

The bee is still alive and the debris on the board tells me the hive is building comb and has pollen coming in.  Most of the other stuff is dirt I put on there myself as the dirt should have a Stratiolaelaps Hypoaspis in it; a mite that might, or might not, eat varroa.  I figured it couldn't hurt putting what I had left over from use on my chickens under one of my hives...  But as I don't actually count mites, there's no way for me to know if it's doing any good (or bad).

The SS 1 2018:
After my previous post I did go back into this hive to remove more simplex frames from this Zander hive, 3 to be exact.  There is now still one simplex frame in here, but since I took out 3 frames and weakened the hive substantially,  I did not spot the queen that time, so I could have moved her over to the split I made in previous post;  That's also the hive I added these frames to, since I didn't spot any eggs after a month, nor did I see signs of a queen present.  I figured adding brood would either boost the healthy colony, or give the bees another chance to raise a queen.
I'll not be adding to the stress of this hive by opening it again, the last frame simplex is probably not coming out this year.
The bees are recovering, be it slowly.  I only do inspections by looking through the window.  I have noticed there are some silverfish living in the cracks of the panel of that window.  Curious if they help in any way or are just there to take advantage of the ideal(?) circumstances to live there.

Above this hive is another 'swarm';

The Piet Deweer Bees:
As with the previous hive I gave it a name;  Of it's previous owner this time.  I call it a 'swarm' since that's what he sold it as, one of his hives swarmed, he captured the swarm and sold me the box with seven frames it was in on may 16th.
I have pyramided the frames in a 2 box (simplex) configuration and am happy to report they are doing well, even the buzzbox app says so.
I have not done a full inspection yet, but peeking underneath the lid (with number 5 on it) shows me good activity across the entire top box, not crowded, but a good amount of bees.  I plan on moving these bees to a new location once I find one suitable.  More on looking for a new place for bees later.
I do not really have any plans for this hive yet other than moving it.  I might use it to shake some (young) bees in and give them an unmated queen to start up a Warré box hive for somebody I met through facebook.  I hope it works out and as soon as that queen is laying I'll tell hem to come and collect the Warré hive.  In return I hope to get something back when I have a setback in my career as a beekeeper.

Potegem Bees:
This last hive is not actually where I have my apiary at home, but rather to the side of my house, near a window.  So I can look out and see bees whenever I want to.
It's a swarm I collected on may 25th.  I had the idea they were doing fairly well and added a super june 2nd.
Using the BuzzBox app the reading came back as 'missing queen'.  I did not panick this time but am giving it some thought.  As I'm thinking this hive may also have had an unmated queen when I captured the swarm I'm going to give her till june 15th to produce some brood.  There's pollen coming in, so that's a good indication everything is ok.  I'm starting to distrust the readings on the BuzzBox app.  (Which can only improve when I give feedback after doing an inspection)  One of my future projects should be using the app alongside doing inspectionsn to provide the creators with said feedback.

Apiary two:

It has been a while since I visited the site, like a week or so, so I don't have an up to date report here.

I'll state that I know I need to get back there to cut the grass under the hives and that all 3 hives (SD 2018, Zander Nucleus MC 2019, Simplex Nucleus LL2019) were flying well upon my last visit.

So on my to do list is doing a full inspection of all three hives there and hopefully after Ives has prepared another hive body for the Zander Nucleus.  I could give some speculations on all three hives so here goes:

SD 2018:

Either the bees have filled up the 2 zander boxes, or they didn't.  If they did, I could either harvest some honey, or make splits if I wanted to do anything.  So just in case the hive is filled to the brim, I need to bring my Zander Queen Castle, although if this is the case I believe I'll be to late to stop them from swarming... Never say never eh?

Zander Nucleus MC 2019:

Last inspection I did I believe I saw eggs, eggs that could not have been from the queen the frames came from, unless I moved her with the frames to this box.  So I'm thinking this one box is going to be filled up with bees.  That last inspection was on may 22nd, two weeks ago, and before then, as in the previous blogpost per may 14thn I moved them from a 6-framer into a Zander Deep.

As stated above, I'll bring room for the bees in the form of an additional box.

Simplex Nucleus LL 2019:

This hive was injected with 3 more frames of brood on may 14th and moved into a Simplex box.  On may 22nd I did find eggs in there, so I'm not expecting any problems.  Just in case I'll bring another hive body and frames to expand the hive if needed.

Apiary 3:

Not a real apiary yet, but I have had some, not so promissing, talks with the water-company here in West-Flanders.  They have locations scattered around that are enclosed and, in my opinion, are located on good bee-sites.  As it stands I have been turned down to put bees on their property for 'safety' reasons.  I have replied that I'm happy that safety is their first concern but that more activity near their sites might help with safety rather than being an issue...  As it stands there is no change in their attitue so I'm not confident they'll allow me to put up bees there.

My other option is to start talking to some home owners that are willing to put a beehive in the garden.  So if I want to do that I'll need to start talking to people that have shown an interest in that.

Trap-out 3:

People have found me after noticing bees coming as a swarm to their house.  I have met up with them on june 1st and we agreed to do a trapout.  The trap-out is installed and I hope all is working as it should be.  I haven't heard back from the home owner, but am scheduled to check back on the situation on june 10'th.

I believe that's it for now...  Life is telling me I have other things to do so...

Bob Out