Thanks for the excellent post on observation hives for honeybees.  Several
comments brought to mind a question that has bothered me for years, and a
very useful, but little mentioned fact.
 
First the question:
 
A few years ago we used to make spring splits by simply ensuring that
both of two Langstroth brood chambers had young brood and eggs, and then
we would place two new floors side by side directly in front of the
original stand and put one of the boxes on each, add a lid, and go away.
Bees would divide equally between the two stands, a queen would be
reared, and we would add another BC to each and super normally.
 
Over 85% of the time a new queen would appear in 21 days in the half
with the new queen.  It would usually more than make up for lost time and
overtake the half with the original queen by honey flow in July.
 
On describing the process to other commercial beekeepers, we found they
were horrified and that they did not believe that an 'emergency' queen
would be of good quality.  Their explanations were somewhat less that
convincing though.
 
I know that such well respected beekeepers as Mraz have used this
stimulus for queen rearing in their systems, and the only hypothesis I
can advance for possible poorer quality of emergency queens follows:
 
When an emergency arises and a colony finds itself queenless, assuming it
has eggs on hand, it usually takes about three full days to start building
cells.  It can select from newly hatched eggs (preferable) or young
larvae up to the sealing stage.  Or perhaps some of each.
 
In our queenrearing experience, we have observed that cells raised from
older larvae emerge earlier than those from the youngest.  I assume,
perhaps incorrectly, that the first queen out will dominate usually.  From
our reading and lectures by eminent authorities, we are told that the
older the larva at time of grafting, the poorer the queen due to a
tendency to be an intercaste of some degree.
 
In our experience, desperate colonies do not always exercise much
discrimination in selecting larvae to use for queen cells - sometimes
using drone larvae in extreme cases.  Moreover, in the case that the
colony had only eggs on the verge of hatching at the time of splitting -
as sometimes happens, the youngest larva would be three days or so old
before queen rearing began.
 
Comments and insights would be much appreciated on this matter.
 
On the matter of bees drifting back and getting lost if moved short
distances, experience has shown me that the question is very dependent on
season and weather and flow conditions.
 
It is common wisdom that bees can be moved two miles or two feet and
nothing in between.  This is really a gross oversimplification designed to
keep beginners out of trouble.  If one is observant and knows bees, it is
I completely untrue most of the time.
 
I have read that if bees are confined to the hive for three days they will
re-orient and not get lost when released even in the same yard.  This is
true and, in fact three days is longer than necessary.  We find on rainy
days where hives have been confined less than 48 hours, we can completely
reorganise a yard without any significant drifting! Cool weather or rain
provide opportunities to move bees, if you are observant.  See if the bees
fly back or whether they follow the hive.
 
Flow conditions have a large effect on whether bees find their hives too.
During a flow bees will return to their location, rather than follow the
hive.  But, during a dearth when few bees were flying to forage, I
particularly remember picking up a huge hive which I had selected to use
as a breeder.  I used a hive loader and it was a sunny mid morning in
June.  Using only light smoke, I watched amazed as the bees that came out
- 150 or so - flew right accurately back into the entrance as it moved
from its stand to the truck.  They stayed with the hive while I drove it
home to the queenrearing yard and performed the same trick there.
 
There were virtually no lost bees left in the original yard as I took the
time to tie the load.  I checked the original stand before I left and saw
none.
 
We see this phenomenon in the fall too when we are moving hives into
wintering position.
 
W. Allen Dick, Beekeeper
Rural Route One, Swalwell,  Alberta  Canada T0M 1Y0
Phone/Fax: 403 546 2588      Email: [log in to unmask]
 
 
 
On Fri, 23 Sep 1994, Dave Green, Eastern Pollinator Newsletter wrote:
<snip>
<regarding the observation hive>
>   If you place two frames of brood with a few eggs and no queen, into your
> hive, you will get to watch the queen rearing process in action. However,
> such a small hive may not raise a very good queen, and it is easy to chill
> her and lose her entirely, because of heat loss in such an unnatural shape.
<snip>
<regarding the mother hive>
>    With all these dificulties, you may wish to give them the established
> queen from your mother hive, and either let it requeen itself (it should make
> a good one), or give it a queen. (Replace the brood frames you take
with good comb and they'll soon have brood again.
<snip>
>    When you take your frames of bees and brood to make up the hive, be sure
> they come from at least a mile, or better two, from the site, to prevent the
> older bees from flying back to the home hive.
<snip>