My Beeweaver queens…
I got 5 the first week of April. One was superscedured, but that hive superscedured the queen before and after the Beeweaver. Of the 4 remaining, one is my strongest new hive, built up rapidly to be second strongest hive. The 3 others are about average compared to the rest of my hives. None are any more aggressive than the rest of my hives. Don’t know about their mite tolerance as I have yet to do any drop counts. I usually start that in mid July and start treating. I treat (OAV) during the dearth, then treat again going into late fall. I plan to keep the Beeweavers TF if they can keep the mite load down to something I think they can survive with. If the normal drop count gets to several hundred, I will treat along with my other hives. I doubt I will try to raise additional queens this year, but if the Best Beeweaver is still doing well next spring, that is the hive I’ll use to build queen cells with. I will adjust that decision based on mite counts and will go with the best producing Beeweaver that stays TF and is still strong next spring.
I got 5 the first week of April. One was superscedured, but that hive superscedured the queen before and after the Beeweaver. Of the 4 remaining, one is my strongest new hive, built up rapidly to be second strongest hive. The 3 others are about average compared to the rest of my hives. None are any more aggressive than the rest of my hives. Don’t know about their mite tolerance as I have yet to do any drop counts. I usually start that in mid July and start treating. I treat (OAV) during the dearth, then treat again going into late fall. I plan to keep the Beeweavers TF if they can keep the mite load down to something I think they can survive with. If the normal drop count gets to several hundred, I will treat along with my other hives. I doubt I will try to raise additional queens this year, but if the Best Beeweaver is still doing well next spring, that is the hive I’ll use to build queen cells with. I will adjust that decision based on mite counts and will go with the best producing Beeweaver that stays TF and is still strong next spring.
