Spring appears to finally have arrived! Finally, a few days in the 70’s. The bees are bringing in a little nectar; probably from the fields of dandelions and loads of pollen.
The upper hive entrance stained yellow from all the pollen the bees are bringing in.
I have installed honey supers on the strongest hives. This was done for two reasons. First to capture this early dandelion flow. Second, I don’t want the bees to be storing nectar in the brood nest area. When the bees plug up the brood nest it restricts the area in which the queen can lay, this may create an urge to swarm.
So far, I have seen no swarm cells in the hive inspections I have been doing, but I have robbed every hive of at least three frames to set up mating nucs. I did hear one club member has already had a hive swarm.
Following up on four weak hives I found 2 were queenless and 2 queenright. On the weak queenright colonies, I transferred in 2 frames of bees and brood from strong colonies. One of the queenless hives was combined with a winter nuc. At this time, I have no plan or resources for the 2nd queenless hive and it will probably slowly dwindle away.
Utilizing winter nucs I was able to replace all winter losses without buying a package or nuc! This is the first time in about 8 years that I didn’t need to buy bees in the spring. Good mite control and use of winter nucs made this happen. Not having to buy bees in the spring makes the difference between having a costly hobby versus actually having a little cash income! All beekeepers should incorporate winter nucs in their beekeeping plans. PS—I see that the Marathon County Beekeepers seminar has been rescheduled for November. One of the topics will be “winter nucs” presented by Adrian Quinney.
My efforts on the queen rearing front were not as successful. Although I was successful in raising 24 virgin queens in late April the weather just was not cooperating in early May. None of the 24 have been able to mate so far. I am hoping this latest warm spell will do the trick, but also know that as the virgin queens age they are less likely to mate. Rain and cold weather kept both the queens and drones at home. As they say, “that’s farming”. Nothing to do but start another batch of queens in hopes that the weather will cooperate next time.
Right now, I am patiently waiting for two new breeder queens; one a Purdue Mite Biter and a second from feral stock. Both of these lines exhibit enhanced mite biting characteristics. When I receive the breeder queens I intend to try the “48 hour cell” method of raising queens. With this method a grafted cell is left in the queenless starter box for 48 hours. Individual cells are them transferred to mating nucs where the bees will, in theory, finish and cap the cell. Reportedly “48 hour cells” can easily be transported long distances if kept at roughly room temperature. This would be an excellent method at minimal cost to distribute superior genetics to all club members that own a mating nuc.
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