Results of the Nasty Queen Replacement Plan

The weather is suddenly autumnal and next door have ploughed the field.    I managed to carry out my last big inspection of the bees to get them ready form the Winter season.   The big question was, how would the new colony, comprising the home bred queen and her progeny combined with the Nasty Queen's colony, behave?

The theory, as I understand it, is that a colony of bees shares the characteristics of their mum, the Queen, who may have mated with one or more drones.  Therefore, unless you can control which drones the Queen mates with, there is a risk that her progeny will inherit their dad's characteristics instead of their mum's.    By giving my nucleus eggs from the lovely G Bee Queen from which to develop a new queen, I was doing my best to produce a new Queen with lovely G Bee characteristics but I couldn't control who she would mate with.

Over the Summer, it became evident that the new Queen and the bees that hatched from her eggs are "normal" bees who concentrate on their bee business and take no notice of me unless I disturb them, which I try not to do.

When I united the Nasty Bee colony with the new Queen's colony after the demise of the Nasty Queen herself, I expected the united colony to have 40-50% of bees with Nasty bee characteristics until those Nasty bees gradually die off.  At this stage in the season, the colony does diminish in size as the Queen does not lay so many eggs and more bees die off than are hatching.

What I didn't expect was that just a couple of weeks after uniting the colonies, the new colony would be so well behaved.    Over the last 2 years I have got used to the Nasty Colony sending out alarm pheromones as soon as I lift the crown board and guard bees pinging my veil at eye level almost immediately after that.

This time, there was none of that.  No sticking of little bottoms in the air when I took off the crown board, no angry guards harassing me.    It's the result I planned for but I am still surprised that to find such benign behaviour so quickly.  

Both colonies now have clean varroa floors, a full-ish super of stores, a clean brood chamber and there is enough room between the crown board and the roof for me to feed them as required over coming weeks and in late Winter.

Their behaviour may now be similar but there is one respect in which the two colonies are completely different.  The crown board in the picture on the left came off the G Bees.  They don't like ventilation.   Crown boards often have a couple of holes in the top  which can be fitted with bee escapes (a kind of one way valve) when you want to move bees down from one part of the hive to another, e.g. in order to remove a super of honey.   

In the summer, I usually cover the holes with wire mesh so the bees have some ventilation.  The lid of the hive stops rain getting in and it also has ventilation holes but the G Bees have completely sealed the metal grills that cover the holes in the crown board with propolis.  They have also sealed the edges of the varroa floor with propolis.  

The new colony has glued the wire mesh to the crown board with propolis but left the centre clear.

Nasty Queen Replacement Plan Part 2

The time has come to implement part 2 of the nasty Queen Replacement Plan

As we approach the end of the season, the time has come to implement part 2 of the Nasty Queen replacement plan which involves finally finding and killing the Nasty Queen and then uniting the colony with the new colony headed by Queenie, the new Queen raised this year from a G Bee Queen egg.

Last week, I visited Bob at the bee shop to buy the Varroa treatment that I will need soon and, as usual, I got a lesson from him - this time on how to find and kill a problem queen.   

Bob recommended putting on every piece of protective clothing I have, dismantling the hive and taking the brood box well away from the apiary then inspecting each frame and shaking off surplus bees onto grass in order to find the queen.  This process should be repeated again and again until the queen was found, then she could be stamped on.   The hive could be reassembled on its usual stand in the apiary so that all the bees would return home.  Finally, the colony could be united with another colony in the usual way, or alternatively, a frame of new eggs from a from another colony could be inserted for the bees to raise a new queen.

My regular outfit for inspecting the Nast Queen colony is jeans and a long sleeved T Shirt, scarf round my neck, disposable nitrile gloves under washing up gloves under long beekeeping gloves, cricket hat, beekeeping suit and wellies.  It gets hot!

No sign of the queen

As I can't lift a full brood chamber easily, I used a nucleus box to move a few frames at a time as far away from the apiary as possible.  

I carefully inspected all the frames and couldn't find the Nasty Queen.   

I shook off surplus bees but there was no sign of the queen.  

I returned the frames to a new brood chamber and repeated the process until the old brood chamber was empty and the new brood chamber was back on the stand.  There was still no sign of the queen but there were a lot of bees on the grass at the bottom of the garden.   

The weather forecast was for showers so I put a cover board against the hedge so the bees still on the grass had somewhere to shelter in case they couldn't get back to the hive.

Next day, with better weather, I repeated the process.   I found an empty queen cell on one of the frames in the brood chamber.   (Could they really create a queen cell so quickly or did I miss it the day before? ) I still didn't find the queen.   

There was a group of bees that had spent the night by the hedge and their demeanour made me think it was likely that the queen was amongst them.   I consulted Dad and he suggested shaking the bees onto a sloping sheet, placing the skep on it and watching the bees march into the skep.  He said I would see the queen running over the other bees to get in the skep.  I've heard of this process for getting bees into a hive but I haven't observed myself.    

this was the point when I belatedly realised that I wasn't sure I could kill her even if I spotted her

It was fascinating to see the bees send out scouts in all directions to the edge of the sheet looking for somewhere suitable to congregate.  They returned to the main mass of bees and I saw wiggle dances.  After a few minutes, a few bees moved slowly into the skep, then others followed them and then there were two rivers of bees running purposefully and swiftly into the skep.    I couldn't see the queen but this was the point when I belatedly realised that I wasn't sure I could kill her even if I spotted her.    Perhaps that was why I hadn't found her since March.  Perhaps subconsciously I didn't want to find her because I couldn't actually kill her.     Absolutely convinced that I couldn't stamp on her, I picked up half a brick and carried on watching the bees.  I was feeling a total failure as a beekeeper because I couldn't even spot a queen bee on a white sheet.

When about three quarters of the bees had moved into the skep, suddenly I saw her.  She looked fatter than I remembered but there was no doubt it was the queen and not a drone.  She was running alone up the middle of the sheet between the two main rivers of running bees.   Without hesitation I put the brick on her and then stood on it, massively relieved that there were no other bee casualties.

The rest of the bees eventually made their way into the skep.  It may be my imagination but they were quivering and looked lost.    In the evening, I put their brood chamber with the bees that were still in it onto the new colony and shook the bees from the skep into the brood chamber.    The blog from 31 August 2015 explains the process for uniting two colonies of bees.   I'll leave them alone for a week and hope they are happier when they realise that they are in Queenie's colony.

The final act (I hope) of the Nasty colony was to sting P  when he arrived home from cricket.  He wasn't near the apiary but a bee got behind his glasses.  Bob says he doesn't mind follower bees but he doesn't like greeters.  P was met by a greeter.  

The Nasty Queen had to go.

Implementing the Nasty Queen Replacement Plan

The first Problem

As a beginner beekeeper, my first problem is making a new Queen to replace the Nasty Queen.  

Any egg in a beehive can end up as a worker or a Drone or a Queen depending on the size of cell the egg is laid in and the food it is given.  Drones have noticeably larger cells that workers and Queen cells are so large they hang off the frame.  So, if a colony "loses" a Queen, the bees can construct an emergency Queen cell around an existing new egg to grow a replacement Queen.

There are lots of beekeeping techniques for making spare Queens and I must have read about most of them over the Winter.   I discussed options with other beekeepers and realised that everyone has their favourite foolproof method.    I decided that grafting queen cells and most other techniques sounded too complicated but I was more confident about setting up a nucleus hive with sealed brood, nurse bees, stores and a frame of eggs from my G Bee Queen and letting the bees do their own thing, so I decided to do that.  

Timing is everything.  I would need good weather for transferring a frame of G Bee Queen eggs safely into a nucleus.  Set up the nucleus too early and there aren't any Drones about for a newly hatched Queen to mate with.   The end of May is supposed to be the best time for Drones, so I had to count backwards from then to find the optimum time to start the process.   I took advantage of a beautiful day in April and put two frames of stores from the G Bees, two frames of sealed brood covered with bees from the Rubettes and one frame of eggs from the G Bees into a nucleus hive.  Any foragers that end up in the nucleus return to the main hive next time they fly out leaving the nurse bees to look after the sealed brood until it hatches.   By then the nurse bees and newly hatched workers all think the nucleus is their home so when they become foragers they return there.

A week later, quite a lot of the sealed brood in the nucleus had hatched and they had used one whole frame of stores.   I gave them another frame of stores to keep them going until they had enough foragers to bring their in their own stores.   I didn't inspect the frame that had been the G Bee egg frame for fear of it getting chilled but after another week, I found an empty Queen cell and when I closed up the nucleus, there were bees fanning on the landing board - normally a sign that there's a queen inside.  According to my beekeeper's rule (a sort of beekeeping slide rule that helps you work out how a colony is developing), it was entirely possible that a Queen had hatched in the last day or two so I might have an unmated Queen in there.

The Second Problem

Problem number two is finding and killing the Nasty Queen.  I didn't see the Nasty Queen during the whole of 2016.  This is partly because I didn't hang around looking at the Rubettes last season.   My objective in an inspection is to check for signs of the Queen (eggs, larvae and sealed brood), to check the colony is developing as expected and has space; to check they have adequate stores and to check for disease.   It isn't necessary to see the Queen if you can see signs of her. 

So at the very first inspection in March this year, I was astonished to see the Queen!!!!!!   The Nasty Queen is slim and black with a reddish brown tinge to her tail.   When I spotted her, I contemplated doing the deed but that would mean inspecting the Rubettes without fail each week to to make sure the colony weren't making a Queen from a Nasty Queen egg.  The weather is too unpredictable in March to be sure of being able to inspect the bees every week.    However, the main reason I didn't catch the Nasty Queen and commit reginicide was that I suddenly realised I didn't have enough hands to hold the frame and my hive tool and do something else at the same time.   

The next week feeling confident that I would shortly have a new Queen in the nucleus, I started to focus on finding the Nasty Queen.   I had just started the inspection when I realised, to my horror, that the zips on my veil weren't done up properly.  For a fleeting moment, as I calmly retreated away from the hive, I thought I might have got away with such a stupid error without the bees noticing but, that was when I heard the buzzing.  I had two stings, one on the back of the head and one on my forehead.   Luckily, P was on hand to scrape out the stings and find the oral antihistamine.  He also helped me finish the inspection but I spent the next 2 days looking like Melania Trump.    There are no photographs but having had this premonition, I will not be rushing to try the fashionable fillers and botox beauty treatment!   The Nasty Queen is still very much alive.

I now have two colonies of badly behaved bees!

Here's the thing.   The Rubettes are still the Rubettes.  The Nasty Queen is as productive as ever and it's a huge colony but the nucleus is also currently populated by bees that came from the Rubettes' hive.   They share the same characteristics as the Rubettes - pinging the veil and following me after an inspection so I now have 2 colonies of badly behaved bees!   

There is a small ray of hope.   At the last inspection of the nucleus, I saw lots of polished cells waiting for eggs to be laid in them and I think I saw the little elongated dots that are eggs in the bottom of some of them.   

Bad Beehaviour

What to do about a badly behaved colony

Over the course of last year, it became increasingly apparent I had one badly behaved colony of bees, one colony of angelic bees and a "normal" colony in the out apiary.   So what's the difference?

My G Bee colony, descendants of the rescue G Bees (see blog for July 2014) are every bit as well-behaved as the original G Bees bred by Mr Griffiths.   When I open them to do an inspection, they go about their business as if I am not there.   Visitors used to watch inspections from only a few feet away (albeit, the other side of the apiary hedge) and I regularly took off gloves to take photographs with my phone during an inspection.     The Sue Bees in the out apiary aren't quite so tranquil but they don't make much fuss during an inspection and nephew H helps Dad look after them.  The Rubettes distinguish themselves by their aggressive behaviour.   As soon as I lift the crown board I see them sticking their bottoms in the air to waft alarm pheromones to the rest of the colony.  Shortly after that the guard bees start pinging my veil.  They fly into the veil at about eye level and keep up this behaviour throughout the inspection.  The Rubettes have a habit of sitting on me and they regularly follow me back to the shed or even the house after an inspection.  This accounts for the lack of photographs last season - I wouldn't dare remove gloves in the apiary - and it's the reason we've made visitors stay well away from the apiary during inspections.

The photograph above was taken after my first inspection of the Rubettes back in 2015.  At the time this sitting on my back and head seemed almost affectionate but when they sit on your arms....and you bend at the elbow....they sting.   I've also been stung through the seam on my gloves where the leather joins the gauntlet.  

I reverted to using leather gloves last season for inspecting the Rubettes simply because they are thicker but I have gradually developed full battle dress for inspecting them.  This comprises my bee suit, wellington boots, two long sleeved T Shirts, a scarf around my neck, a cricket hat under the hood, nitrile gloves under washing up gloves under rubber bee keeping gloves with long gauntlets.

So, what to do?

I spent the latter part of last season and the Winter talking to other bee keepers and reading books eventually coming up with a plan that I thought I could implement to replace the Rubettes' Queen, aka the Nasty Queen. As all the bees in a colony are descendants of the Queen, they carry her genes.  Replace the Queen with a well-behaved Queen and after about 6 weeks, you should have a colony of well-behaved bees.  But will the theory work in practice?

Winter Beekeeping 2016

The Beekeepers' AGM and Weather Conditions Compared with Last Year

It's the weekend of the local beekeepers' AGM and annual dinner again (menu: Sliced gammon served with baked potatoes, coleslaw, mixed salad, two chutneys and assorted mustards; bread and butter pudding, or fruit salad, or chocolate flan, or chocolate roulade, or any combination; cheese and biscuits; coffee and mints).   The Chairman summarised the year for the organisation noting the purchase this time of a  second observation hive and, jointly with the county beekeeping association, a gazebo.  For once, it seems no new catering equipment was required.

Conversation over dinner included the usual comparison of fortune over the year.  We were lucky, it seems.  I was aware that a few miles to the North, beekeepers were feeding their bees during the same week that our GBees filled and capped a super with honey but I also learnt that a couple of miles South, bees were also being fed at that time.  At one of the apiaries nearest to us and closer to the centre of the village, they also had a huge honey yield so there must be something in the village that filled the gap for the bees between oil seed rape and autumn hedgerows.   We think it may have been lime trees.  They can, apparently produce large quantities of nectar but the temperature has to be just right at the right time for them to be valuable to bees.

It seems that wasps weren't such a problem for anyone this past year.   

Our bees in the home apiary survived the usual wasp attacks because we have learnt to put them on solid floors, or varroa mesh floors with the inspection tray underneath, supplemented by strips of rubber (actually old yoga mat) cut to fill any gaps and prevent wasps getting into the hive from underneath.   After reading an article in beekeeping news we made porches out of corrugated plastic sheet (which you can clearly see on the G Bees' hive above) and we filled any little gaps in the hive casing with foam.   We have left the porches on for the Winter but will probably take them off early int the Spring.

Penny recommends Waspinators, a kind of bag that imitates a wasp nest and which is supposed to deter wasps because they think there is already a was colony in situ.  I've already ordered a couple of them to try in the Summer.

We are all on the lookout for the dreaded Asian hornet.  Asian hornet nests were found in Gloucestershire towards the end of the season which could mean that that Queens are already over wintering somewhere....

Weather

A year ago when I blogged about the AGM and dinner, I also commented on the mild Winter we were having and listed all the plants flowering in the garden in late January.  What a contrast this year!  

We have had unseasonably mild weather up to Christmas.   The National Beekeeping Unit sent out a message to beekeepers in the last few days of December recommending the we give our colonies fondant as a supplementary feed because they were receiving reports that some colonies had used their stores because they were still flying rather than huddling in a ball.  

On 8th January, when we put the fondant on our hives, both colonies were flying in large numbers.  However, since then we have had a cold snap.   The only plants flowering this week are Winter flowering honeysuckle and Sarcococca (Winter Box).  The cold snap is taking its toll on other animals and plants too and we have lost our lovely Golden Hornet Crab Apple.    The bark has been stripped all round the trunk.  The culprits are rabbits because the damage is low down.    Muntjac deer chew bark from about 1 ft up to 2 ft and roe deer strip bark 3 - 4 ft up the trunk or from low branches.   Fortunately, all the trees in the orchard are protected by anti-rabbit devices (wire round their trunks).