Comment

Comment by Rob Shepler on July 16, 2012 at 6:09am

Kevin and I attended the Zia Queen Bee seminar this weekend, I HIGHLY recomend it. Long way to go and very worth it! Mel and Mark have offered to speak at a future meeting.

Comment by Paul McCarty on July 13, 2012 at 12:51pm

Oh, and when you start raising queen, get REALLY GOOD at being able to tell the difference when your hive has a new laying virgin from having a laying worker problem. They look very similar. Most of the people follow Michael Bush pretty well around here, but he only glosses over this in his writings.

Comment by Paul McCarty on July 13, 2012 at 12:47pm

I just picked up two queens from Aurelio today. Very interesting place he has. His front yard is like mine only with about 200 more hives. The whole family does bee apparently. Yes, Rob, I have raised about a dozen queens so far, but the quality has really variable. I suspect it is the wild bees I was using. I have about 4 queens out of 10 hives or so that are what I would consider REALLY good. the rest are sort of average, to below average. The hardest part of this year has been simply keeping them alive. They seem to go queenless at the drop of a hat - not sure why. Good thing, no mites to speak of, none of them have raised more than a generation or two of brood before they got replaced.

Comment by Rob Shepler on July 13, 2012 at 7:50am

I have emailed with Aurelio a little bit and he seems like a very nice man. I know he stays busy down in Mexico volunteering his time. He has even offered to come and give our little group a talk as a guest speaker.

A 30% loss is a pretty big deal even in a drought for a queen breeder. I have to assume that he got caught in Mexico at a critical time and could not give his hives the attention that they needed. I think I would be happier with that answer, than thinking the failure was due to the genetics of his bees.

I know that Paul has had some pretty good luck with his queens. If I were putting his queens in my hives I think I would like to know more about his losses.

Survivor stock is all the buzz these days and I guess you can’t raise queens from dead bees!

Your thoughts?

Comment by Diana Calkins on July 12, 2012 at 4:26pm

Paul, I'm pretty close to being there.  Now I just have to convince my partner in crime.  ;O)

Comment by Paul McCarty on July 12, 2012 at 4:01pm

Diana, eventually you will get strange like me and sit in the yard with your ear to the hive on the scheduled day listening for the virgin.

And Jim... glad you got one of his queens. It should work out well for those bees. Their future was to get one of them eventually anyway.

Comment by Diana Calkins on July 12, 2012 at 2:00pm

How fortunate you got to hear that!  I would imagine the new queen wouldn't make that sound for very long.  Guess you were in the right place at the right time.

Comment by Rob Shepler on July 12, 2012 at 1:49pm

When a new queen is hatching she announces to the hive that she is on the way, it gives the old queen a chance to gather and swarm if she is going to. It is a squeaky sort of a Beep, beep, beep. It is unmistakable once you here it.

Comment by Diana Calkins on July 12, 2012 at 1:28pm

Good to know, James.  We'd been feeding them and have lots of water as they were situated beside a creek and our garden with drip irrigation and some sprinklers.  As far as forage and pollen goes, it has been a stretch.  Hope your combination of weaker hives works out well.  Could you let us know your procedure and how it goes?

Comment by Diana Calkins on July 12, 2012 at 1:26pm

Piping virgin queen?  What is that? 

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