Reviews of How Fast Russian Honeybees Build Up
As leap settles in here in western North Carolina, there are clear signs of rapid growth in my apiary. In my last blog postal service, I noted that the new colony of Buckfast bees was scheduled to make it and discussed the installation of two new queens. This week we'll exist learning what a VSH queen provides to a colony. But starting time let me share what'southward happened in the apiary since my last post. All of my colonies are showing clear signs of growth merely they are definitely at different stages in this process of ramping upward for summertime. It is clear that I will get honey this summer, only the damage washed to one of my colonies was then severe that a lot depends on how quickly they grow every bit to whether or not they will be a honey producer. Then, let's review what'south happening with each of my colonies. If you lot remember, I related having to kill Beatrice afterward discovering a deteriorating brood pattern and a supersedure cell that was ill-placed in the gap between the brood box and the medium box. So, I installed a caged Carniolan queen in the hive in hopes that they would quickly release her so the colony could get on even footing. Since it had been eight days since I installed this new queen, I was curious to encounter what had happened in the acting. The weather turned cold right afterward I installed the queens with frosty nights two nights in a row. So, going in to this inspection I had a number of questions: Getting into the hive, I noted that this colony continues to eat the sugar h2o more slowly than their counterparts. This fact is not terribly surprising given that they are the smallest colony in my apiary. The medium box, which was my dearest dome of winter stores for the colony, withal has pregnant amounts of honey which stands to reason. The larger colonies have largely eaten through their beloved stores every bit they take ramped up production. Moving into the brood box, I began my search for a released queen. Moving towards the center of the box, I pulled out the queen cage and saw that it was indeed empty with the sugar candy entirely eaten through. The colony had release Lucrezia into her new home. And, I found her wandering on the back side of that frame. I took the time to mark her, placing a cherry-red dot on her thorax. She did not like my efforts but the deed was done. So the commencement 2 questions were answered affirmatively, the new queen survived the cold snap; and, the colony had released her. I saw a few eggs and larvae but not as much as I would have liked to have seen at this indicate. That suggests to me that it took this colony a little longer to release her due to their smaller population. I'll exist looking at my next inspection to see meaning amounts of eggs and larvae. The colony has grown in size over the last month and foragers are bringing in pollen stores. Carniolan queens are noted for their ability to rapidly increment the size of a colony, and so hopefully in a few weeks I will starting time seeing that kind of build-up in this colony. Even though the colony has not reached critical mass plenty to want to swarm, I'll be placed a 2nd brood box in the coming week to attempt to forestall that from happening. I'll continue to monitor this weakened colony until I detect that information technology is out of danger. I wanted to go a dandy picture of Lucrezia for you lot but unfortunately my positioning in the early afternoon sun shaded the frame she was on and you lot tin can't really meet her. Then I'll try again during my adjacent inspection. The arrival of my nuc of Buckfast bees has been something I have predictable since I ordered them in January. Then, when I picked them upwardly I could inappreciably wait to go them back to the apiary and install them. They have a reputation of being docile bees and not bad dearest producers. So, naively, I though I could hands transfer them from the nuc to the deep box without any trouble and without donning my adapt. Information technology was with proficient intentions simply with bad results. Those bees were irritated from beingness locked upwards in that box for a while; VERY IRRITATED! I got ane frame in without any problem. By the second frame, they were getting a fleck more agitated. I couldn't really spend much time locating the queen. By the fourth dimension I got to the third frame I had to seat it in the hive and run. There were worker bees tangled on either side of my head in my curly hair. And yes, both of them stung me in my scalp. We all know what happens next! The stings transport out warning pheromone and the beekeeper was running through the yard with a railroad train of Buckfast bees busily chasing him abroad from the hive. In hindsight, it is actually hilarious thinking well-nigh information technology. At the time, I was more concerned with getting abroad from the hive so equally to non cause further agitation. Afterward removing myself about a 100 yards up the hill from the hives, the workers lost interest and went back downward to the hive. I donned my arrange and completed the process of installing the nuc. I was definitely curious to run into how this colony was settling into their new domicile. Working through the breed box, I still could not notice Freya. This queen is skilful at hiding! I'll endeavor once more this weekend. I did see some eggs and larvae so she is around somewhere only nosotros'll run across if she becomes more obvious as they draw out more comb and breed starts condign capped. That is normally when I find it easier to see a queen. I will be keeping an centre out for her when I perform my next inspection. I can say that this colony is an active one. They accept been very actively bringing in pollen so they are stocking up for a growth spurt. This minor colony struggled through winter in a nuc and shocked me past not but surviving only thriving! The signs of swarming seem to be alleviating and I will be placing a second brood box after the rains depart this week (looks like former on Sabbatum). My inspection revealed plenty of capped breed as well as some newly laid eggs from their new queen. I located Luna, a VSH Italian queen, and marked her. She really tried to escape on my conform merely I herded her dorsum onto the frame later getting her marked. I didn't spend a lot of time in this colony as it simply needs time to settle in with its new queen and get back into a routine of rapid growth. We'll be discussing what VSH means for us a little afterward in this blog post. Later taking a quick await through the colony and removing some brace comb, I closed things back up and permit them get back to business organization. This colony is very active and they are constantly coming in with total pollen baskets. Everything they need to grow is nowadays. Stay tuned for more details in my next mail. This colony is the shining star of my apiary. Eleanor continues to astound me in her second twelvemonth with this colony. Terminal week, I added a second brood box just the growth in this colony obviously has them feeling crowded so they have started producing swarm cells on the bottoms of the frames. With then many frames in this colony fool of brood, both capped and uncapped, it is clear that the build-up in population had to exist alleviated. So for the second week in a row, I decided I needed to perform a carve up of a colony. I removed 5 frames and replaced those frames with new, empty frames. I'll relate the steps in my split as I discuss this new nuc beneath. In a few weeks, I will terminate feeding this colony and install a queen excluder and a honey super. This colony is going to exist stiff enough to produce dear for me this yr. I'm quite excited by this prospect since I patiently waited last year and allow the bees have all the honey they needed. Once I get my queen castle built, I intend to start producing queens from this colony. Hopefully past my next blog post, I'll have the queen castle built and we'll talk near my plans for raising queens. After performing a thorough examination of the colony, I reassembled the hive and refilled the elevation hive feeder. This colony is voracious! I have chosen non to name my nucs even so equally I intend to probable sell this nuc when it gets just a little fleck stronger. If you remember, I created this colony by splitting Hive Rome and moved Cornelia into the colony. Simply like she did with the nuc that became Hive Rome, she has already begun ramping upward production. With her productivity unabated, I'll have this colony strong plenty to sell in a couple of weeks. Looking through the v frames, I plant plenty of brood including newly laid eggs, larvae, and capped breed. The population is already growing in this colony and foragers have begun coming out of this colony in just the last few days. If I become to sell this nuc, it will be the start money I have made from my hobby. That'southward rather heady but will but buy more sugar and supplies. When I discovered swarm cells in Hive Acquitaine, unoccupied but still a warning sign, I decided to become ahead and create a separate to create my second nuc of the season. I moved three frames of mostly capped brood into the colony and a frame of mostly eggs and young larvae. The 3 frames of more often than not capped brood volition requite the colony a fresh infusion of nurse bees to go things growing. The frame of generally eggs and young larvae will give the current nurse bees a production line to kickoff raising a queen. The 5th frame was total of beloved and pollen to give the new colony some food stores to get them started. I shook a few frames of mostly brood into the box to augment the population of nurse bees in the box. I also placed a top hive feeder on the colony and filled information technology was carbohydrate water to give them more nutrient to help them in their work of producing a queen. Surprisingly, I saw the kickoff foragers really leave the colony and render with pollen the twenty-four hours after I performed the split. It was a surprise only is a adept sign for this colony. I am looking forward to seeing if this colony tin can enhance a daughter queen from Eleanor's stock which showed potent resistance to the Varroa Mites that nearly took two of my colonies and did successfully destroy one colony. This nuc would definitely get the 5th full hive in my apiary if they successfully produce a queen. I really don't want to grow beyond four hives at this bespeak but with a survivor stock queen I recall getting drones out of those colonies into the local genetic pool is important every bit the colony losses in our canton lone was likely close to 50% of all colonies countywide. So, earlier I mentioned my VSH Italian queen that I had placed in Hive Rome. Just, I realized a lot of new beekeepers may not understand what VSH means and why having queens with these genetic traits is so important in our fight against the dreaded Varroa Mite. And so, let'southward start with what the acronym stands for; VSH stands for Varroa Sensitive Hygiene. The concept of convenance bees that are sensitive to the Varroa Mite and human activity to eradicate the pest was spearheaded by the USDA-ARS Honey Bee Lab in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The Lab "produced varroa resistant honey bees by selectively breeding from colonies with loftier percentages of infertile mites." The Lab determined that the "heritable trait in bees which causes high percentages of infertile mites was termed 'suppression of mite reproduction' (or SMR trait) because we thought that the bees were directly interfering with mite reproduction." What the Lab found was that bees with the SMR trait "were very hygienic and were able to remove varroa-infested pupae from capped breed cells." The research suggested that SMR bees actually "may selectively remove pupae having reproductive mites." In a study of SMR bees with infested capped brood, the Lab discovered that the "SMR bees removed 91% of pupae having reproductive mites and 58% of pupae having infertile mites that had produced progeny." The conclusion was that the presence of mite offspring triggered the hygienic reaction. The success of the USDA Bee Lab in convenance for resistance to Varroa Mites besides produced beneficial genetic traits that over generations of bees has resulted in enhanced resistance to American Foulbrood and Chalkbrood not to mention defense against wax moths and small hive beetles. There are now VSH Italian and VSH Carniolan queens available. Only, another choice exists for fighting Varroa Mites, in the form of Russian queens. These queens are of pure Russian stock produced from 100 Russian queens from the Primorsky territory imported by the USDA-ARS lab in 1997. Research began early in 1998 when the queens and their colonies were movement to apiaries nearly the lab. After finding resistance to Varroa Mites with these bees, 40 Russian queens were selected to produce daughter queens for two extensive field trials in which the resistance of the Russian honey bees toV. jacobsoniwas directly compared to that of domestic honey bees ordinarily used commercially in the United States." To ensure that the best genetically resistant Russian queens would exist produced, one queen was chosen where the colony had shown extremely strong resistance to the Varroa Mite. A mating station was established on an isolated island to ensure that "the desired combinations of queens and drones" would be present to allow natural matings to produce high genetic multifariousness and to allow the queens to mate with near twenty drones. The plan to create Russian queens involved a collaboration with the Russian Academy of Sciences which immune for the importation of the best Russian queens for possible inclusion in the study and to heighten the genetic diversity of the program. As function of these efforts to combat Varroa Mites, the Russian Beloved Bee Breeders Association was formed to "maintain and improve the genetic lines of Russian honey bees through propagation and selective convenance." The association's web page points out that "There are 17 lines of Russian Queens divided into three groups called Block A, B, and C." This is done to avert inbreeding while making improvements through selective breeding. The Association's program "calls for mating queens from Block A to drones from queens of Block B and C, mating queens from Block B to drones from queens of Blocks A and C, and then on." To become a certified breed for the Russian Honey Bee Breeders Clan, you accept to have an isolated mating yard stocked with sufficient numbers of appropriate drone source colonies. Where VSH bees resist mites past removing infested pupae, Russian bees show multiple mechanisms for the resistance to mites including: Yes, there are lots of acronyms associated with honeybees that have genetic traits that make them resistant to Varroa Mites. But, having bees resistant to Varroa Mites is ane additional armament in our arsenal in producing colonies that survive and thrive. Using VSH bees or Russian bees allows the beekeeper to enhance their IPM procedures for dealing with mites and for those beekeepers who want a more than natural approach, these Varroa-fighting bees are an absolute must. At present that I've bewildered your brain with lots of science and a host of acronyms, I will permit you digest information technology all. I encourage yous to follow some of the links brindled through the blog post and also the links I'grand listing below as source material. Genetics oftentimes determines much and honeybees prove that fact notwithstanding again. I encourage yous to larn more than near this and peradventure make an effort to go VSH queens. By the mode, getting a Russian queen requires proactive efforts. I tried to get Russian queens for this spring simply all of the queens were already reserved. So, I'm on a waiting list and will receive them this twelvemonth if someone decides they don't want the queens they accept reserved. I have already placed myself on the list for next yr's queens so that I would avoid missing out. In my adjacent weblog post, I will share more updates on the growth in my colonies and volition endeavour to get you a solid motion-picture show of my new queens, including that elusive Buckfast queen! I besides will relate how things become with my first treatment for Varroa Mites this season (Formic Pro). And, if some of you have topics you would like me to cover, please write comments to this web log post and so I tin can get-go doing research. Until next fourth dimension, Happy Beekeeping!Hive Updates
Hive Florence
Hive Asgard
Hive Rome
Hive Acquitaine
Nucleus Colony #i
Nucleus Colony #2
Dealing with Varroa Mites with Genetics
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Source: https://www.perfectbee.com/beekeeping-articles/a-new-beekeepers-journal/buckfast-bees-splits-and-vsh-bees
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