34 : A Year on a Honey Farm: May
Mating nuc city!
a new queen cell has been introduced and the cycle resumes.
Preparing Queens For Sale
Queens that have mated successfully and are laying well with plenty of sealed worker brood are identifi ed and a marker is placed on the roof of the mating nucleus so we know she is ready to sell. At this time we will also mark the queen with the appropriate colour for the year and clip her if the customer requires it. Queens that have been ordered are placed into queen transportation cages that have been primed with candy. I make candy from icing sugar, honey and water. The honey is used as it stops the candy drying out too quickly. The queen will have between
eight and ten attendants to accompany her during her journey and these will be taken from her own nucleus and put with her in the cage. I always send queens out in the mail on a Monday. This is done to avoid weekends and the chance of them getting held up in sorting offi ces.
Mating Apiaries
In my opinion the siting of a mating apiary is as important as your breeding stock. I have used many sites for mating queens over the years. Some have been very good and others have been poor. A good mating apiary is vital if you want your queens mated quickly and successfully. The sites I use now have been used for many years. One is slightly better than the other but both are very good. The
Nurse bees working on queen cells and feeding larvae
Two of our incubators, sterilised and ready for use
reasons we believe they are the best we have had is that both are situated in small valleys but receive the sun all day. They are away from any strong winds and have two rivers adjoining them which almost creates a peninsula, and so secludes the area to a certain degree. Our own apiaries and drone- breeding colonies occupy sites next to these mating apiaries and, by so doing, we are able to fl ood the area with the drones of our choice. Doing this gives us a much higher probability of achieving the pairing that we would like. Our mating apiaries have the capacity to produce two to three thousand queens per year. However, in inclement weather this number can be signifi cantly reduced.
Re-queening
Having a constant supply of our own queens is invaluable. It means that re-queening can take place at any time between May and September. If queens are found to be failing in any of our honey production colonies they can be quickly substituted with young prolifi c replacements.
Making Nucleus Colonies
Before the bees return from the oilseed rape fi elds, we will
www.bee-craft.com May 2015 Vol 97 No 5
use the abundance of bees within these colonies to make up 140 nuclei. Each of these colonies will need its own queen. Having the mating nuclei stocked and ready to take queen cells this early is essential to be able to supply these nuclei with this year’s mated queens. If we are able to do this when the bees return from the oilseed rape, these new colonies can go on to occupy full hives and possibly provide a surplus of honey by the end of August, which is always a bonus.
Next Month
We will be taking a look at the day-to-day running of our apiaries during the height of the season and also our preparations for the main honey fl ows and how we make up our nucleus colonies. ♠
Visit
Why not spend a weekend with us on our honey farm and see it for yourself? See our advert opposite..
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