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).

Cooking with Honey

Kim and Tim visited the Hive at Kew Gardens this year #KewHive and, luckily for me, the bookshop was well stocked with beekeeping and honey related books.  My Christmas stocking included "Spoonfuls of Honey" by Hattie Ellis, "A complete guide to honey's flavours & culinary uses, with over 80 recipes."

It's an enchanting book, which I have already read from cover to cover.  A high proportion of the recipes are appealing (and it's not often I say that about a cookery book).  Yesterday, I was inspired to try "Roman Honey-Baked Ham".    Triumphant from the success of helping Tim on Christmas Eve with his honey and mustard glazed ham (Tiptree honey and mustard sauce mixed with demerara sugar), I happened to buy a ham yesterday to cook for this festive season.

I had to adapt the recipe slightly as I didn't have any dried figs; or breadcrumbs; or Dijon mustard.   

The photograph above is the succulent result of boiling the ham in water and apple juice with bay leaves, more-or-less as the recipe suggests.   The closest I could get to dijon mustard was a jar of mustard seeds.   I crushed them in a pestle and mortar and mixed them with honey (Lot number 3).   After cutting off the rind and scoring the fat,  I coated the ham with the honey and mustard mixture and studded the ham with cloves, just because it looks good.

It tastes every bit as good as it looks!   Happy New Year!

Hive Products

No! Not More Honey.

This afternoon I made pure beeswax creamed polish for use on leather or furniture.  The kitchen smells warm like my grandparents' drawing room, the room only used at Christmas and when they had important guests as opposed to the sitting room that they used every day and which didn't have any distinctive fragrance.   It's only now that I realise their best room smelled of beeswax and turpentine furniture polish!

I tried to get Great Grandfather's recipe for Bionic Polish.  I recall Mum making it and I know it was a very soft polish made with beeswax and turpentine but I don't know the proportions or whether there were any additional ingredients.  She used to put it into bottles rather than jars.   Great Grandfather's (only) other recipe is for "Embrocation" a magic lotion used to treat both people and horses for sprains and strains.    Mum made both and famously rubbed Dad's back with Bionic Polish by mistake when the labels fell off all the bottles in a damp cupboard.   The Bionic Polish recipe appears lost for the time being so I resorted to Mrs Beeton's recipe:

Shred 8.5 oz beeswax into a large jar.

Stand in boiling water until melted

Add 1.5 pints of turpentine slowly.

Stir rapidly to mix well.

Pour into wide-mouthed jars or tins to set.

I had exactly 8.5 oz of beeswax from the cappings removed in the last honey extraction.   In the absence of a suitable jar, I used an old coffee pot which has lost its lid.  Coffee pots don't seem to be useful anymore so what a great way to use it.

Shredding the wax with a box grater took a long time but it was a satisfying task and Friday afternoon radio kept me entertained.  I carefully poured in the pure gum turpentine off the heat and stirred  rapidly, then the jug came in to its own, making it really easy to pour the liquid polish into the jars and the electronic scales made it relatively easy to get the weight right in each jar.  

I visited Bob at the Bee Shop last week and bought the jars and labels.  He only had labels saying "at least 90g", which is technically correct as the jars hold 250g.   For some reason, I like the warning labels more than the polish labels.   Perhaps it's the bold black cross on a bright orange background.

I wonder whether I will write another blog to report how the polish works?  To do so, I'd have to do some polishing.  Hmmm.   Don't hold your breath!

Honey Shows

Read on to find out why I have posted a picture of a handsome silver cup!

After the great experience of the County Honey show last year, when I found out that the local beekeepers were going to have a gazebo at the local country show, I had to take part.

The number of classes was minimised but all of us were encouraged to enter as many classes as possible.

1. Clear Honey
2. Creamed Honey
3. Set Honey
4. Honey Fruit Cake
5. A pair of candles

Luckily, the bees produced clear honey as well as set honey this year but we don't process our honey to produce a creamy set, so that limited me to two honey classes.   Notwithstanding my poor attempt to win acclaim at the County Honey Show with my honey sponge last year, I decided to attempt the Honey Fruit Cake.    I have been developing my efforts to melt down wax but I haven't progressed to candle making yet; maybe I'll try that next year.   

Knowing some of my fellow beekeepers, I was in no doubt that I would have to put effort in to have any chance of a prize.  Sally sent me guidance on how to prepare honey for showing from an old beekeeping magazine- 3 pages of closely typed instructions!    Given that the honey was already in jars, all I could do was select nice examples and polish the outsides of the jars, then pack it so there were no finger prints to be seen.

As usual, I practised making the cake and as last year, this involved buying 2 new cake tins because I didn't have any the right size and the recipe said, make two cakes, enter the best one in the show and eat the other.   My first attempt was pretty good and the cakes were quickly eaten.   The second attempt, which included the cake I took to work for my colleagues to judge, produced crumbly cakes with a bit of a depression in the centre.  As you can see, my final cake also sank a little in the centre.

Anyway, you can see from the photo below that the Honey section of the Horticultural marquee looked splendid.

The gazebo was nearby and included an observation hive, a model bee hive, lots of books and photographs and a table for children to have a go at making candles from coloured wax foundation.

P and I had guests for the weekend and they enjoyed their afternoon at the show, especially the dog show, while I was volunteering in the gazebo and P played cricket several miles away (!)

As soon as I arrived, Sally asked if I could come back the following day to collect my trophy.  It transpired that both jars of honey had been awarded 2nd place in their respective classes and two 2nds trump a 1st, so I had won the trophy for the beginner with the most points at the show.

It was only later that I discovered that the clear honey (Lot No 5 if you read the previous blog) was 2nd in the beginner's class and the set honey (Lot No 3) was 2nd in the grown up beekeepers' class!

    

I am very proud of my bees!

If you are wondering why there's no photograph of me being awarded the trophy at the awards ceremony, it's because on the second day of the show, P and I, along with Kim and Tim and about 30 friends were on our annual 20 mile bike ride.  We never know the route until the day itself but we were riding through the village where the show was taking place so Kim, Tim, P and I diverted off the ride to try to pick up the trophy.   This was not allowed!  This meant I had to cycle home as fast as possible in order to jump in the car and drive back in time for the awards ceremony.   This was not without some risk as I had a blow out on the back tyre earlier in the day.   Fortunately, my cup was the penultimate one to be awarded.  I did have time to brush my hair but I was still wearing my cycling gear and I had been wearing a cycling helmet all day.  I haven't attempted to get a copy of the official photograph!

Found in Dad's Shed

Dad has given me this delightful cross stitch that he found when he was cleaning out his shed.  

Kittie was a well known beekeeper in the village and she gave Dad some of her equipment when she down-sized from her house with a very large garden on the outskirts of the village to a bungalow in the village centre about 30 years ago.    

We guess that Sheila was the vicar's wife.

The verse is the first stanza from a poem by Isaac Watts (1674 - 1748).

How doth the little busy bee

Improve each shining hour,

And gather all the day

From every opening flower!

How skilfully she builds her cell!

How neat she spreads the wax!

And labors hard to store it well

With the sweet food she makes.

In works of labor or of skill,

I would be busy too;

For Satan finds some mischief still

For idle hands to do.

In books, or work, or healthful play,

Let my first years be passed,

That I may give for every day

Some good account at last.

What makes this particularly touching for us is that both Kittie and Sheila were guests at our wedding 24 years ago.   Kitty has since passed away and Sheila and her husband moved away when he retired.

I have arranged a suitable frame and will be hanging this in the barn where we do the honey extraction.