Grafting update

The batch of Queen cells have now been moved into their new homes, nucs and mininucs.  They are due to hatch tomorrow or the day after.  I had a quick peek at one of them to make sure everything is going to plan.










This one was put into a nuc along with a frame of bees from the colony that reared the five cells on the top bar.  It is a nice size and fingers crossed all is well.  I will leave them all alone now for a couple of weeks, by which time they should all be mated and hopefully laying.

Larvae grafting

I have over the last few weeks been grafting larvae to produce my own Queens.  I am using the best colony that I have this year as the donor and two colonies to raise the Queens.  This is very small scale, enough to produce all the Queens I will need for this season and for early nucs and colonies for sale next year.

The photographs are of the artificial Queen cells and the 'hair curler' cage that will protect the the Queen cell once it is capped.


Five Queen cells have been attached to a frame top bar, it has been in the host hive for a couple of days so the bees can clean the cells and make them ready to accept the the donor larvae.

The photograph on the left is of the equipment that I am going to use to carry out the grafting.
The bar with five Queen cells attached, a magnifying headset, larvae are very small objects and it leaves both hands free for this delicate operation.  A frame with newly hatched larvae from the donor colony and on top of the frame is a chinese grafting tool.

A newly hatched larvae is selected and is scooped up using the grafting tool along with any jelly in the cell and then pushed off the grafting tool into the artificial cell.  Some say that the larvae must stay the same way up as it was, others say it makes no difference.  As I do not have enough experience yet I prefer to edge on the side of caution and the larvae are slid off the grafting tool in the same position as they were in their colony.
A damp cloth is used to cover the completed cells as it is very warm here today, 28C, and it would be very easy for the larvae to dry out. This is carried out until all the artificial cells have a larvae.
The frame is then returned to the host colony and the bar of grafted cells is returned to the host colony.

After  just a few days in the host colony, the bees have done their stuff and the Queen cells are close to being capped.  As soon as they cap the cells they will be removed from the hive and the cells unclipped from their bases.  If the cell is to requeen a colony it will be protected with a hair curler cage and placed in the Queenless colony it is to take over.  If it is to make up a nuc, it will be placed in a Queen raising mininuc along with a cup full bees from the colony that have just raised it.

White honey and blond drones

I have an apiary where i keep all my best colonies, where Queens are raised and mated.  All of the Queens in this apiary are related in some way, sister, mother, aunt, cousin.  And yet just one of these colonies produces the lightest coloured drones, I have not found them in any of the other colonies in the apiary, they seem to stay where they were born.

They really are the nicest drones I have seen.  For non-beekeepers, a drone is the male honeybee and is larger than his sisters, the workers.










Another colour oddity has occurred this week, the first honey we extracted crystalised within 48 hours.  Almost certainly contains a large proportion of oil seed rape,  since setting it has been gently warmed and stirred with a stainless steel paddle to prevent it from re-setting.  It came from several hives in different apiaries about 10 miles apart, and yet this honey has all turned out white.  I can only assume the farmers in this area are using a new variety, because this is the first time we have had white honey.

On the plus side it tastes lovely, a very light flavour.  Goodness knows what our customers are going to think.

Its all about the honey

The very cold Spring has held crops back this year, especially the oil seed rape, which plays a huge part of South Lincolnshire agriculture.  Because large patches of the fields were waterlogged over the Winter the crops have grown and matured at an uneven rate, we are in July now and some fields are still in flower and have been for weeks  This has given our bees a much longer season on the osr than any normal year, whatever constitutes a normal year these days.

With the crops maturing late, our hives were just about moving towards full strength at just about the right time.  This has all resulted in producing the best early honey crop we have had for years.
Considering the very cold extended Winter and cold Spring its a very surprising result.
On the left are a few of the fully capped supers we have been taking off over the last week.  Almost certainly all with a high percentage of osr.  But it is all in 10 litre honey buckets now, waiting for it to set.