Web site updates

[Michael Bush]

FYI, I've been updating some of the content, cleaned up the menu, added a queen rearing section and a "two queen hive" section, and I cleaned up and added hyperlinks to Huber's book.

http://www.bushfarms.com/bees.htm
http://www.bushfarms.com/huber.htm

[George Fergusson]

Nice job Michael. I often refer to your site for one reason or another, or send other people there. It's the best available source for a some stuff and it's nicely organized. Makes me want to get busy on making more of my own site. In due time I suppose.

[Jeffrey Todd]

Micheal,

I read your page on queen rearing and want to say that I really enjoyed it. It brought to mind a couple of questions as well.

>If we make a strong hive queenless. They could have, during that 28 days of having no laying queen, reared a full turnover of brood.

If we only want one new queen or to requeen the parent colony, this would work fine with no drawbacks, right (assuming we save the original queen at least until the new one is established)? And would we potentially get a leg up on varroa with the break in brood? Would this be a good strategy for late summer or fall requeening while combating varroa?

Also, are the emergency queens reared by a queenless nuc going to be as good as those reared by a queenless full-strength hive? Will these be as good as those beautiful cells we see during swarm season? Oftentimes the emergency cells look small and less promising.

Lastly, given the choice between all different ages of eggs and larvae, will the bees choose the ones of the best age, or will they choose the oldest ones in order to get a queen as quickly as possible? I see where some people advocate cutting queen cells after 4 days because they were supposedly reared from larvae that were "too old".

Thanks for the interesting and informative site. Beekeeping is a godsend and I would not want to imagine life without it.

[ September 10, 2006, 09:42 AM: Message edited by: Jeffrey Todd ]

[Michael Bush]

>I often refer to your site for one reason or another, or send other people there.

Just an FYI. I notice a lot of people provide a link to the first page and explain how to get to the page with the information. But if you right click on a link on my pages (or anyone's), you can, in IE pick "Copy shortcut" to get a shortcut to just that page. In Firefox it's "Copy Link Location". This allows you to provide a direct link to, say the "Natural Cell Size" page. You can also do this with the indexes like the one on "Lazy Beekeeping" if you want to send a link to just one item, like say "carts".

>If we only want one new queen or to requeen the parent colony, this would work fine with no drawbacks, right (assuming we save the original queen at least until the new one is established)?

Depending on the time of year dequeening a hive can be a major setback (here it would be anytime from early spring until the end of May because you'd have much less foragers for the flow) or a major advantage (here it would be anytime from the end of May until the middle of July) because you'll need less nurse bees and less resources to rear brood during the flow AND you get a break in the brood cycle.

>And would we potentially get a leg up on varroa with the break in brood?

Yes.

> Would this be a good strategy for late summer or fall requeening while combating varroa?

It's a good strategy anytime from two weeks before your main honey flow to the end of your main honey flow or a couple of brood cycles before brood shutdown in the fall.

>Also, are the emergency queens reared by a queenless nuc going to be as good as those reared by a queenless full-strength hive?

In my experience it depends on the DENSITY of the bees and the supply of food, not so much on the overall number of bees. So you can get very good queens from a nuc that is wall to wall bees with plenty of pollen and nectar. You can get mediocre queens from a full sized hive that is sparsely populated and in a dearth.

> Will these be as good as those beautiful cells we see during swarm season? Oftentimes the emergency cells look small and less promising.

I've seen plenty of small queens that were laying up a storm and continued to do so for three years. I'm not so sure that judging a queen by the queen cell or her size is the best criteria.

>Lastly, given the choice between all different ages of eggs and larvae, will the bees choose the ones of the best age, or will they choose the oldest ones in order to get a queen as quickly as possible?

Emergency queens:
Jay Smith's (famous queen breeder who probably raised more queens than anyone who ever lived) answer is:

"It has been stated by a number of beekeepers who should know better (including myself) that the bees are in such a hurry to rear a queen that they choose larvae too old for best results. later observation has shown the fallacy of this statement and has convinced me that bees do the very best that can be done under existing circumstances.

"The inferior queens caused by using the emergency method is because the bees cannot tear down the tough cells in the old combs lined with cocoons. The result is that the bees fill the worker cells with bee milk floating the larvae out the opening of the cells, then they build a little queen cell pointing downward. The larvae cannot eat the bee milk back in the bottom of the cells with the result that they are not well fed. However, if the colony is strong in bees, are well fed and have new combs, they can rear the best of queens. And please note-- they will never make such a blunder as choosing larvae too old."

> I see where some people advocate cutting queen cells after 4 days because they were supposedly reared from larvae that were "too old".

It probably doesn't make any difference. Dee Lusby would point out, however, that early capping and early emergence is an advantage over Varroa and we might be breeding against it if we keep doing that.

[Tors]

great read while im on dialysis hard to type though.!!!!
ttfn.

[Michael Bush]

I have added some pages:

Laying Workers
Colony Decisions
Robbing
Ulimited Brood Nest
Races of Bees
Experiment (Checkerboarding and Broodnest managment methods)

Also changed the way it navigates so you can bookmark the place you are better instead of getting the opening page. Also changed the look and feel a bit. Categorized the menu on the left into Equipment, Information, Pests, Queens and Links. Cleaned up Huber's book more.

http://www.bushfarms.com/bees.htm

[Jeffrey Todd]

Thanks for the update, Michael. Oh, and I forgot to thank you for the answers you gave to my earlier questions regarding dequeening. You especially piqued my interest with your assertion that it is the DENSITY of bees that is important in rearing good quality queens. That makes sense and is useful information in that it makes it much more desirable to use a nuc for queen raising instead of a good, full-strength, honey-producer hive during those times when it is critical to build population for the coming flows.
The new look on your website is also nice and a little easier to navigate.

Jeffrey

[Michael Bush]

Added:

Bee Basics
Unatural Things