Five Rivers Bee Club Monthly Minutes May 18, 2021
Meeting was called to order by Lonnie Perry at the Hardy
Civic Center in Hardy Arkansas.
Johnny Niswonger gave opening
prayer.
We had 37 folks in attendance (26 members + 11 guests).
Minutes of April 20, 2021 - William Kaebler
made motion to accept and Dan Morthland 2nd
– all approved as read.
Treasurer Report - $789.98 (all books are open to any member)
Next home visit will be Saturday, May 22 at Dan Morthland’s home. If
there, please take pictures and send to Jacque for the Photo section of the
website. More information visit the Events page of the
website. http://5rbc.net/events.html
Dan donated a Queen trap to the club. Lonnie has it in his possession. It is a prototype, you take a whole frame,
place it inside this trap, remove the queen, place the
container in freezer. This kills any
mites and pests that are associated with bees.
Then you place frame back in hive, get another frame and repeat process. Call
Dan if you wish to learn more.
Lonnie brought in an observation hive and had folks try to
find the unmarked queen. That was quite
enjoyable to do. Thank you.
Lonnie spoke on Queens tonight. Bees will split and swarm, it
is in their nature to do so. Be ready
when this happens, have your swarm box / lure box at the ready.
Do not place it too high up, the queen may leave.
He passed out a 6 week lifespan of honey bee queen. See attached page.
A queen only mates once and carries enough sperm for her lifespan. She may do her mating flight more than once
and will go further away to find non-family members to mate with. Some queens (25-30%) after their mating flight
may not make it back to the hive. Watch your hive for this. If a Queen does get eaten by a predator or is
not doing well and the hives wish to replace her, you will see Queen cells at the bottom of a frame.
What is a Supersedure Cell?
When a colony is raising a new queen to replace the aging, ill
or missing queen, they produce supersedure cells. The
new queen that emerges from the cell will take over from, or supersede, the old
queen. To boost the odds of producing a healthy new queen, the colony creates
several supersedure cells at the same time. In most
cases, the first one to emerge will become the new queen.
Beekeepers usually find supersedure
cells on the comb face, extending out from the surface and hanging downwards.
With most varieties of honey bees, the colony will produce between one and
three supersedure cells at one time.
You can carefully remove one / two of
these and place on a new frame with some bees and start a new hive this way, if
you wish.
By contrast, swarm cells
produce a new queen to take the place of the one preparing to leave the hive.
Typically, the bees produce many swarm cells and the strongest of these new
queens take over the production of new brood for the colony.
You can do an artificial swarm before
they do it on their own. This is a good video on how it works. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQPQj_UhmMk
Lonnie said the book that he always
went to when he started years ago was called ABC XYZ. We have it here as a .PDF. Link
here to read it. http://5rbc.net/PDF/THE_ABC_AND_XYZ_OF_BEE_CULTURE_1910_-_ROOT.PDF
Some folks mark their queen. Each color represents a year. A marked queen is beneficial because it aids the beekeeper in
identifying the queen more quickly, thus knowing where the queen is so as not to accidentally kill her. It also allows
us to keep detailed records on a specific queen, particularly her age and performance.
What
color or choose?
Unfortunately there isn't a large color swatch to choose from. In fact there is
an international color code for bees. This allows you to tell the age of any a
marked queen.
Year
ending: |
Colour |
5 or 0 |
Blue |
6 or 1 |
White |
7 or 2 |
Yellow |
8 or 3 |
Red |
9 or 4 |
Green |
For
example if you re-queened a queen in 2012 - you would put a yellow dot on her
thorax.
If you are wishing to raise Queen cells, grafting is the way to go BUT you should be an
experienced beekeeper before under taking this technique. Grafting is the action of transferring a larva from a brood cell
into a manufactured cell cup. This technique allows beekeepers to create any
number of queen cells that are easy to handle and transport.
Meeting
was adjourned at 7:50 p.m.
Next meeting is 15 June 2021 at the
Hardy Civic Center beginning at 6:30 p.m.
Minutes submitted by Jacque English
Reach - Teach – Keep