Allen requested a bit more history and context on subject bees.
I was forced into keeping bees because the area South of McAlester
was void of bees, including bumble bees, in 2003 and 2004 requiring
me to hand pollinate squash and cucumber plants. I joined a local
beekeeping club in January 2005 and found a mentor who sold me two
bee colonies in April headed by recently purchased Wilbanks'
queens. In August, my mentor determined that one of the Wilbanks'
queen was failing and replaced her with his survivor queen propagated
from a colony removed from a tree in 2000. The original cut-out
colony and subsequent split were not treated for mites during the
five year period because the colonies always produced 3-4 medium
supers of honey, annually. My mentor treats colonies for varroa
mites with Apistan or Checkmite strips in late July and early August
when a colony fails to produce 2 supers of honey.
In February of 2006, the survivor colony was moved to my cattle
ranch, 25 miles North of McAlester and 3.5 miles West of Indianola
about 1/2 mile from the South Canadian River. Later, in early April
about 3 days before Black Locust trees bloomed, the colony was split
using the cut-down method whereby the queen, open brood, pollen and
some honey are moved to another stand about 10 feet away and the
capped brood, workers and remaining honey remained on the original
stand. The colony on the original stand reared a queen and filled a
second deep hivebody along with producing 3 medium supers of
honey. The colony with the old queen filled a second deep hivebody
and produced 2 medium supers of honey. Also, in February 2006, I
worked a deal with my mentor to acquire 10 of his colonies which I
took to my Indianola cattle ranch. A cut-down split was performed on
these 10 hives in early April with the old queens, open brood, pollen
and some honey returning to the mentor's apiary; and the remaining
splits with the worker bees, capped brood and remaining honey stayed
at my ranch to rear new queens. None of these hives were treated for
varroa mites after they were moved to my ranch. Two of the 10 hives
were very aggressive; and, in April 2007, I decided to requeen
them. However, I wasn't able to find the queens because the bees
covered my veil obscuring my vision. Since each hive had two deep
hivebodies and a super filled with brood, each box of brood was moved
about 10 feet away and placed on an individual bottom board with a
top cover. A deep hivebody with foundation, a frame of eggs from the
survivor colony and top cover was placed on the bottom board where
each aggressive colony sat, requiring the field workers to rear a new
gentle queen. After a week, queen cells were destroyed in each box
of brood from the aggressive hives, with the medium super being
combined with a deep hivebody and given a frame of eggs from the
survivor colony. The two aggressive queens were killed in remaining
two boxes; and, after a week the capped queen cells were destroyed
whereby each box was given a frame of eggs from the survivor colony.
In the Spring of 2007, the deephive bodies were reversed and a honey
super added on top to deter swarming. In May and June 2007, I used
Dave Cushman's method for making increases using one of the survivor
queens and the remaining 8 hives from my mentor plus the second survivor hive.
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/method1.html
However, the learning curve was steep; but, I managed to produce 17
nucs headed by a new survivor queen. These survivor colony nucs were
given to my mentor to replace some of his hive losses. The parent
hives produced very little honey requiring 2:1 sugar water to survive
the Winter and early Spring. Two of the 8 remaining mentor hives
died over the winter. The 8 survivor colonies survived the winter.
Again in 2008, hivebodies were reversed and honey supers added to
deter swarming. Each of the 8 survivor colonies produced 3-4 supers
of honey and the remaining 6 mentor colonies produced fewer supers of
honey. No splits were made. If there were any swarms or
supercedures, all virgin queens were mated and returned to their
hives. All colonies went into Winter with adequate honey stores and
did not require any sugar water. Two more of the mentor hives died
during the Winter; however, the 8 survivor hives survived the winter.
Again in 2009, hivebodies were reversed and honey supers added to
deter swarming. More rainfall than normal fell from May through
October resulting in very little honey production for all
colonies. One survivor colony hive lost their queen resulting in
drone layers. Only good part about the year was an abundant hay crop,
9 tons of bermudagrass hay per acre. Two of the mentor colonies
were requeened with two of the survivor queens and allowing the two
survivor colonies to rear queens. Majority of the hives were light on
Winter stores requiring 4-5 gallons of 2-1 sugar water per hive.
In 2010, hivebodies were reversed and honey supers added to deter
swarming. One survivor colony chimneyed up through the two honey
super to the top, freezing to death head-first in cells with frames
of honey on both sides. One survivor hive was split three-ways in
late March, resulting in an increase of two survivor hives. Three of
the survivor colonies were taken out of honey production to produce
queen cells for nucs. The learning curve was again steep until I got
a handle on the math of queen cell production using a cell builder
hive. I finally managed to cut-out 6 queen cells for placement in 6
nucs which each successfully resulting in a mated queen. Two of nucs
were added to my ranch apiary and four were sold to other
beekeepers. Hopefully, in 2011, a greater number of queen cells can
be produced to sell to local beekeepers. The survivor colonies
remaining in honey production produced either 3 or 4 medium supers of
honey. One super of honey was left on each hive incase El Nino
produces a warmer and drier Winter than normal resulting in the
colonies consuming more winter stores than normal. Except for the
nucs, all colonies have about 100 pounds of winter stores and should
not require any sugar water. Only one of the mentor hives continues
to survive after 4 years without any mite treatment.
The nearest beekeeper to my ranch is 4 miles South.
Mike, if I can get up to speed on producing and mailing queens, I'll
contact you.
Jim Young
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