Queen Bee Posts

The Queen Cell Builder

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The workhorses of any queen rearing operation are the cell building colonies.  These are special bee colonies that are established with the specific purpose of raising queen cells.  Queen cells are larvae that are grafted from high quality breeder stock, and developed by the cell building colony to become queen bees.

How does the queen cell builder know to raise a queen bee, rather than a worker bee?  First, the cell building colony typically is queenless from the outset, so it has a natural desire to raise new queens.  The positioning of the queen cells is also important.  Rows of grafted larvae are placed in the center of the colony, hanging upside down in the same manner that a colony would naturally hang its own queen cells.  This makes the larvae recognizable to the colony as potential queen stock rather than worker stock.  Secondly, a cell building colony is packed full of young nurse bees, almost to the point of being overcrowded.  Young nurse bees are the best producers of royal jelly – the larvae’s food – and a good queen cell building colony should never be lacking for royal jelly production.  The beekeeper continuously feeds the cell building colonies, so that the nurse bees are never lacking for food themselves.  Lastly, the slight overcrowding of the colony tends to produce a swarming instinct, which in itself causes the colony to want to produce extra queens in anticipation of a possible swarming event.

The queenlessness, the larvae hanging upside down, the heavy population of nurse bees, the feeding, and the slight overcrowding – all create a potent brew of incentives for the cell building colony to produce a quality set of queen cells.  At Wildflower Meadows, when constructing our queen cell building colonies, we strive to create all of the these conditions.

The First Mated Queen Bee Of The Season

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Behold, the first mated queen bee of the season!

Around the middle of March, Wildflower Meadows begins harvesting its first mated queen bees of the season.  These early-season queens hatched and took flight in February to mate with the some of the first drones of the season.  A lucky customer will surely be excited to receive this beauty.

Let’s keep in mind, however, that in agriculture, being the first does not always equate to being the best.  For example, the first peach of the year is typically not quite as sweet and juicy as mid-season peaches.  For that matter, the last peach on the tree is generally not that good either.  The best peaches are usually those that are harvested right in the heart of the season, when there are a million other peaches to choose from.  Similarly, the best queen honeybees are usually mated at the peak of the season, when the queen raising conditions, the weather conditions, the drone saturation, and the mating are all optimal, and everything is coming up “peachy”.

That said, this early season queen has some unique characteristics that set her apart from the others.  First, she’s the first!  You can’t deny that.  There aren’t that many of her kind right now, and everybody wants her.

Secondly – and much more importantly – she’s holding onto some unique genetics.  The drones that mated with her are by definition the earliest drones of the season.  They come from colonies that are the first to buildup, and are showing unusual strength in the early spring season.  These drones also originate from winter survivor stock, unlike some of the season’s later drones, which will originate from same season stock.  In other words, the colonies that produced these drones are real go-getters!

It is most likely that the offspring of this queen, because she now carries the genetics of these early season drones, will exhibit the prized quality of early season vigor and rapid buildup at the start of seasons to come.

Eighty Years Later: A Tribute To O.W. Park

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Today we take for granted the idea that beekeepers can prevent American Foulbrood and other infectious diseases with antibiotics.  Back in the early 20’th century, however, there existed no effective way to control infections.  Penicillin had not even been discovered until 1928, and it was a number of years later before the first antibiotics became commercially available.

With the absence of antibiotics, beekeepers of the time struggled mightily with American Foulbrood, an infectious disease that routinely killed beehives (and still does today).  The only way that beekeepers of the time could control this deadly disease was to burn infected hives and equipment to keep the disease from spreading.  Even to this day, a sizable percentage of beekeeping books still speak of the need to burn equipment that is infected with American Foulbrood.  That this message of burning infected equipment carries forward all the way into 2016 is a testimony as to how severe this rampant and deadly disease was – and especially with the advent of resistant antibiotics – still is.

It is easy today for all of us to take for granted the concepts of “resistant bees,” “hygienic behavior,” “treatment free beekeeping,” etc.  These are commonly used terms, and relatively well-known concepts in today’s beekeeping world – especially when it comes to queen rearing.   It is hard to imagine that eighty years ago, in the mid 1930’s, these concepts did not exist.  Beekeepers weren’t even aware that bees could be selectively bred to establish these desirable traits in honeybees.

In 1935, a visionary beekeeper, O.W. Park, noticed that certain colonies seemed to be resistant or immune to American Foulbrood.  He had an idea:  What if honeybees could be bred to be resistant to American Foulbrood, and the disease could be controlled with the genetics of the bees themselves?  Starting with 25 strong and apparently resistant colonies, along with six control colonies, Mr. Park, along with his associates, set out to test this theory.  He then purposely exposed and infected all 31 colonies with infected American Foulbrood larvae!

What then happened?  All of the six control colonies, and many of the 25 resistant colonies died.  But, amazingly, seven of the resistant colonies survived.   In 1936 Mr. Park then bred a second generation of colonies from this “survivor stock,” which proved to show an even greater level of resistance in the next generation.  In the process, Mr. Park pioneered the concept of identifying resistant bees, and selectively breeding bees for disease resistance.  He also proved that this concept works, and can yield real and positive results.

2016 marks the eightieth anniversary of this landmark study on disease resistance in honeybees.  A full eighty years later, beekeepers continue to carry on in the shadows of the visionary, O. W. Park.

 

Grafting Queen Bees

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The act of transferring young larvae from breeder queens into cell building colonies is called “grafting.”  Queen producers do a lot of grafting.  Every future queen bee for sale begins with the simple act of grafting; the transferring of larvae from a breeder queen into a cell cup, and then into a queen cell building colony.  It is with this method that the entire commercial queen rearing industry produces queen cells, which hatch into future queen bees.

Grafting is one of the more technically challenging parts of raising queens.  The grafter should have excellent eyesight, and a sure hand to be able to pick up tiny larvae that are about the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen.  The grafter uses a special tool (known as a grafting tool), which slips underneath a larva and scoops it up along with some of the surrounding jelly.  The larva is then carefully placed in the center of the receiving cell cup.  Ideally, there should be no impact on the larva whatsoever; as the act of grafting needs to be a smooth and gentle process.  Larvae are extremely fragile, and grafting needs to be done in a warm, well-lit, and relatively humid environment.  Speed is also important, as the larvae should not spend too much time outside of the colony and run the risk of drying out.

We have found that our best grafting sessions take place when we are calm and relaxed.  Too much sugar or caffeine can lead to a shaky hand!  Calm and steady is the key, one larva at a time.

Photo is courtesy of Glenn Apiaries, with permission.

El Niño

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After four years of drought and a general lack of rain, things are finally getting wet around Wildflower Meadows!

The first week of 2016 alone brought over three inches of rain to our queen rearing apiaries, giving the parched ground a nice soaking.  The spring rains of El Niño, assuming they continue, should provide a noticeable difference to the bees’ well-being later in the season.

Early season rains offer a welcome boost to the plants and crops that the bees rely on later for food.  In past drought years, even though honey-producing plants bloomed as usual, the flowers were often dry.  Our bees would visit their favorite flowers and would come home empty.  The plants, stressed by drought, were holding back the little water they had, and not giving up any surplus moisture to their flowers and the bees.

As a result, most California beekeepers, including Wildflower Meadows, were forced to feed their bees much more than normal over the past several years to make up for this ongoing deficit.  Hopefully, with higher ground saturation in 2016, the plants will have more moisture to spare.  Once the plants begin to flower, honey production should improve, and nectar should be more plentiful.

In the near term, however, the heavier rains mean less foraging time for the bees.  Bees are not at all interested in flying in the rain.  The steady rains and blustery weather force all but the bravest bees to stay inside their hives until the weather clears.  With less foraging time, bee colonies often need additional feeding while the rains keep them confined in their hives.

It’s too bad that we beekeepers can’t stay inside during the rain too!  For better or worse, our beekeepers have to head out and brave the rain to feed bees, move hives, gear up for queen rearing and so on.  So far, we haven’t gotten any of our trucks stuck in the mud, but it’s probably only a matter of time . . .

Flowers In December

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In the Northern Hemisphere, not too many plants offer honeybees blossoming flowers during December.  One exception is the jade plant, also knows as Crassula Ovata.  In most parts of the country, jade is a houseplant, but here in California, jade grows outside, primarily in outdoor household gardens.  Jade, a native of South Africa, is a succulent plant that thrives in subtropical climates and doesn’t require much water.  Therefore, it is especially popular with water-thrifty homeowners in California.

To produce blossoms, jade takes its cues from the weather.  It needs long nights, cool and dry days.  December in California fits the bill perfectly.  Usually around the first week in December, buds appear, shortly thereafter followed by somewhat sticky, pink and white, star-shaped flowers.

The bees in our queen bee yard are usually rather dormant in December, taking a well-needed vacation from the hard work of raising queens over much of the year.  Nevertheless, the blooming jade plants perk them up a little.  Where else can a vacationing honeybee get a nice serving of fresh nectar in the middle of December?

Wildflower Meadows would like to thank all our customers and friends for a successful 2015.  We wish each and everyone of you a joyous and happy holiday season.  Our best wishes to you all for 2016!

The Composure Of A Well-Mated Queen Bee

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Near the end of this season we managed to capture a close up photo of a rather calm looking queen as she paid a visit to the “tattoo parlor” for her blue mark.  There is something peaceful about the mannerisms of a well-mated queen bee.  She exudes a sense of composure, which can practically be seen in the above photo.

This sense of calm is also noticeable inside the hive as a well-mated queen bee moves purposefully and calmly across the combs, laying her eggs in a meticulous circular pattern.  The other worker bees carefully surround her, gently touching her with their antennae to connect with her queen pheromone.

In handling a queen bee, as long as she is treated with care and respect, the queen typically will take her handling in stride, hardly putting up a fuss as she is given her color mark or placed inside a temporary cage for transport.  At times when we gently grasp a mated queen bee by her thorax or wings for marking (here by her legs), it feels like she is holding hands with us!

In handling countless tens of thousands of queens, to the best of our knowledge, no queen bee has ever attempted to sting any of us at Wildflower Meadows.  Although queen bees have a stinger, and theoretically can sting humans, they almost never do.  Instead, they reserve their sting – which is as potent as any other worker bee – for their traditional enemies: other queen bees.

Next Year’s Champions

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During the height of the beekeeping season, while we are busy raising queens and shipping orders, another project takes place in the background.  Our breeding experts are assessing an assortment of bee stock obtained from around the country for the best of the best – the most mite resistant, the most gentle, the most hardy of all.  They then cross their best candidates with other desirable stock, typically pure VSH drones obtained from the USDA.  If all goes well, the results are outstanding breeder queens for the upcoming season – next year’s champions.

Around the end of each season, we look forward to receiving a new group of these hand-selected breeders to add to our existing proven stock.  This assures us a ready selection of quality queens from which to breed at the start of the next season.

We recently received our final set of this season’s breeder queens.  Number 63, pictured above inside a push-in cage, arrived with high accolades.  Her offspring is light and gentle, and contains both the Pol-Line and VSH traits.  She is precious, and we are taking all precautions for her well-being!

To introduce her into a new colony we used a homemade push-in cage.  This type of cage allows the queen to begin laying eggs in a safe and controlled area before the cage is removed and she is fully released into her new colony.  By laying eggs before she is released, she becomes more desirable and better accepted by her new colony, greatly increasing the odds of her successful introduction.

The Final Fall Queens

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At some point in early autumn, usually around mid-September, give or take, mating conditions begin their decline.  The bees sense the oncoming change of season, and bee colonies begin subtle changes in preparation of the upcoming winter ahead.  Our queen cell building colonies, which earlier in the season were queen-producing machines, grow less enthusiastic about raising new queen cells with each passing day.  They know it, and we know it too: the season is nearing its end.

Colonies have begun to cut back on brood rearing and are especially reluctant to produce new drones.  Autumn is not a season of swarming and expansion, so the bees feel little need to raise new drones.  Without swarms and virgin queens flying about, drones serve little purpose in the honeybee world.  We begin to see less and less of them.

Autumn is when we harvest the very last queens of the year.  Our last batch of queen bees, pictured above, was mated about a month earlier when conditions were better.  These are the true fall queens, the final mated queen bees of the year.

The last batch of queens also marks the end of the queen-rearing season for Wildflower Meadows.  The mating nucs are shut down, our employees take some well-earned time off, and the bees begin their long journey into the winter season

Multiple Mating Flights, Multiple Mates

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Until the middle of the 20th Century, scientists believed that queen bees took only one mating flight in their lifetime.  It wasn’t until the 1940’s that a scientist who was studying queen bee mating behavior discovered that queen bees take multiple mating flights.  The scientist (Roberts, 1944) determined that the number of mating flights ranged from one to five.  It took another ten years or so for another scientist (Woke, 1955) to postulate and prove that queen bees not only take multiple mating flights, but also mate with multiple drones during this flights.

We now know that queen bees mate with approximately 10 to 20 drones, typically over the course of several flights.  Why so many flights and drones?  By spreading the mating process both over time and over multiple drones, the queen limits the probability that she will mate with a drone that shares the same sex alleles.  This varied mating program minimizes the chances of inbreeding and maximizes the chances for “hybrid vigor.”