Want to start raising bees in the spring. Any advice welcome!
- Thread starter manybirds
- Start date
- Thread starter
- #32
manybirds
Loving the herd life
off topic question, if a queen bees eggs all hatch out into male worker bees how are new queen bees born?
Backwards... the queen lays eggs that primarily turn into female workers. These are the ones referred to as "brood" and are normally centered on the frames. The males are drones (drone brood) and are normally only laid early in the year, and as a small percentage of the eggs laid. They are generally on the outside edges of the frames. Their cells and they themselves are physically much larger than the females and don't have stingers. Their only purpose is to leave the hive and fly to a point where they congregate and wait for virgin queens to arrive. When the queens arrive, they all fight for the opportunity to mate with the queens. After the queen has mated with 5-10? (a bunch) of individual drones, she returns to her hive and has enough collected sperm to last her lifetime. She only uses the sperm to create females, drones are produced from unfertilized eggs.
Another time she will lay more/extra drones is if the hive is getting prepared to swarm. At the same time as drone production increases, the nurse bees (newly hatched bees that care for the larva) will start modifying regular cells into queen cells around a regular cell that the existing queen has laid a female egg in. They then alter the food fed to the larva prior to capping the queen cell that allows that female to become a queen vice a normal female worker. The old queen will leave the hive with about half the workers to form a new hive elsewhere, and when the first new queen hatches, she will kill the rest of the new queens (or try) till there is only one queen. That virgin queen will leave the hive after a few days (used to ensure she is the only survivor and will indeed rule the hive) to go to the mating point and the process starts over. The mating dance can also last for up to a week before the queen has collected enough sperm.
Most bee keepers actively look for an increase in drone brood production, especially in late spring/early summer, as this is an indicator that it's time to "split" the hive and form new captive hives, before the hive can swarm. If they miss this opportunity and their hive does swarm, chances are those bees will be "lost" to the bee keeper which means less bees, less honey production, and a much smaller hive in re-building mode vice honey production mode. If they split in time, then they now have 2 (or more) hives vice the one they started with, all in rebuild mode, and the chance for a much better honey crop. A really strong hive with lots of brood frames covered in nurse bees, and plenty of stores (honey and pollen) could be split into 1/2/3 or sometimes even 4 new hives. One of the hives would keep the existing queen and the others would all either get a new purchased queen installed, or left to "grow" their own from new eggs or less than 3 day old larva in the brood cells that are moved to create the new hive(s).
Another time she will lay more/extra drones is if the hive is getting prepared to swarm. At the same time as drone production increases, the nurse bees (newly hatched bees that care for the larva) will start modifying regular cells into queen cells around a regular cell that the existing queen has laid a female egg in. They then alter the food fed to the larva prior to capping the queen cell that allows that female to become a queen vice a normal female worker. The old queen will leave the hive with about half the workers to form a new hive elsewhere, and when the first new queen hatches, she will kill the rest of the new queens (or try) till there is only one queen. That virgin queen will leave the hive after a few days (used to ensure she is the only survivor and will indeed rule the hive) to go to the mating point and the process starts over. The mating dance can also last for up to a week before the queen has collected enough sperm.
Most bee keepers actively look for an increase in drone brood production, especially in late spring/early summer, as this is an indicator that it's time to "split" the hive and form new captive hives, before the hive can swarm. If they miss this opportunity and their hive does swarm, chances are those bees will be "lost" to the bee keeper which means less bees, less honey production, and a much smaller hive in re-building mode vice honey production mode. If they split in time, then they now have 2 (or more) hives vice the one they started with, all in rebuild mode, and the chance for a much better honey crop. A really strong hive with lots of brood frames covered in nurse bees, and plenty of stores (honey and pollen) could be split into 1/2/3 or sometimes even 4 new hives. One of the hives would keep the existing queen and the others would all either get a new purchased queen installed, or left to "grow" their own from new eggs or less than 3 day old larva in the brood cells that are moved to create the new hive(s).
Last edited:
Maggiesdad
Loving the herd life
Wow - miss a few days and everything just blows up around here! 
I'm crunched for time, so I'll have to come back later and read through for comprehension again. @Latestarter - you'll want to edit that post above once again, first paragraph last sentence...
I'm crunched for time, so I'll have to come back later and read through for comprehension again. @Latestarter - you'll want to edit that post above once again, first paragraph last sentence...
Goll dang it... I got in a rush and got it backwards... Thanks dad! corrected
Happy Chooks
Loving the herd life
Latestarter gave the long explanation.
Basically, the queen chooses to lay a fertile egg (female) or unfertile (male). Drones do nothing in the hive except freeload and mate virgin queens. Flying sperm basically. Once they have mated, the drones die shortly after. They are kicked out in the fall, as they are just extra mouths to feed. Females are workers and do everything in the colony from feeding the queen, cleaning cells out, tending to brood (nurse bees), guarding the entrance, and ends their lifecycle with foraging.
A queen can only be made from an egg that is less than 3 days old. So if the queen is lost, as long as there are eggs, they can make a new queen. The queen is fed differently than workers, which is what makes her a queen.
If you have a hive that is only producing drones, then you have no queen and instead a laying worker. Since a worker is not a queen, they can only lay drones. As I found out this year, these are difficult to re-queen, but I conquered it.
Never claimed to be "short"winded...
Maggiesdad
Loving the herd life
Ok - all caught up!
@manybirds Everything everybody has told you so far is true.
There's a lot they haven't told you, too!
Here's some important takeaways...
Bees are livestock. They need food, shelter and water. Even when they are provided these three things, you sometimes have problems. If some of these things are lacking, you will have more problems. Lots more.
Location is everything, and understanding what forage is available to them in your location is crucial to their(and subsequently your) success.
Beekeeping is 94% location, 3% pest/disease management, 2% location and the other 1% is luck.
That's why it's important for you to make the acquaintance of successful beekeepers in your area. You will most likely have to emulate them to be successful.
Bees are expensive. If you expect for them to pay for themselves (vs throwing all your money down the rathole of an expensive hobby) you will need to do much research and attentive learning. Prolly after 3-4 years of attentive learning you will be beginning to grasp what you have been doing wrong for the past 3-4 years. Then the bees will teach you more things. 
(disclaimer : I am quite inexperienced and have not completed my first 365 days as a beekeeping apprentice. But I have read several books and a lot of silly stuff on the interwebs. 
)
Unless you are totally skunked several years in a row, you will probably become addicted to keeping them, which will lead to more expenses. But honey bees are amazing, fascinating, beautiful creatures. And that makes it all worthwhile... for me
Oh and when you do it right - they make lots of honey. Which is reaaaaalllly good stuff!
I believe I'll go get a smackerel on a slice of toast for a snack before I toddle off to bed...
@manybirds Everything everybody has told you so far is true.
There's a lot they haven't told you, too!Here's some important takeaways...
Bees are livestock. They need food, shelter and water. Even when they are provided these three things, you sometimes have problems. If some of these things are lacking, you will have more problems. Lots more.
Location is everything, and understanding what forage is available to them in your location is crucial to their(and subsequently your) success.
Beekeeping is 94% location, 3% pest/disease management, 2% location and the other 1% is luck.
That's why it's important for you to make the acquaintance of successful beekeepers in your area. You will most likely have to emulate them to be successful.Bees are expensive. If you expect for them to pay for themselves (vs throwing all your money down the rathole of an expensive hobby) you will need to do much research and attentive learning. Prolly after 3-4 years of attentive learning you will be beginning to grasp what you have been doing wrong for the past 3-4 years.
Then the bees will teach you more things. (disclaimer : I am quite inexperienced and have not completed my first 365 days as a beekeeping apprentice. But I have read several books and a lot of silly stuff on the interwebs. ) Unless you are totally skunked several years in a row, you will probably become addicted to keeping them, which will lead to more expenses. But honey bees are amazing, fascinating, beautiful creatures. And that makes it all worthwhile... for me
Oh and when you do it right - they make lots of honey. Which is reaaaaalllly good stuff!
I believe I'll go get a smackerel on a slice of toast for a snack before I toddle off to bed...
Maggiesdad
Loving the herd life
Hey, @Dogma - sorry about the rough goes...
Last winter was definitely a bear. I believe VA beekeepers were looking at around 50% losses coming out of winter, and then they were having 2 out of 3 installed packages superseding the queen by summer, topped off with heavy mite infestations and colony failures this fall.
If you have drawn comb w/honey, and can freeze, it then you're golden for getting off on a good start next spring. If you decide to give it another try (third time's the charm!) go on and check out some bee books from the library, and snuggle in for a long cold CT winter. If you can't get to the library start reading up on varroa at bushfarms.com/bees.htm and Randy Oliver's Scientific Beekeeping. To have a fighting chance, you have to understand how the varroa population interacts with your colony population,and what's is manageable and what is disaster waiting to happen. Consider getting a nuc from Sam Comfort at Anarchy apiaires. Packages from down south require a lot of crutches.
Last winter was definitely a bear. I believe VA beekeepers were looking at around 50% losses coming out of winter, and then they were having 2 out of 3 installed packages superseding the queen by summer, topped off with heavy mite infestations and colony failures this fall.
If you have drawn comb w/honey, and can freeze, it then you're golden for getting off on a good start next spring. If you decide to give it another try (third time's the charm!) go on and check out some bee books from the library, and snuggle in for a long cold CT winter. If you can't get to the library start reading up on varroa at bushfarms.com/bees.htm and Randy Oliver's Scientific Beekeeping. To have a fighting chance, you have to understand how the varroa population interacts with your colony population,and what's is manageable and what is disaster waiting to happen. Consider getting a nuc from Sam Comfort at Anarchy apiaires. Packages from down south require a lot of crutches.
Dogma
Loving the herd life
They are expensive and worth it!!
