2018 · June 21, 2018
In the garden beekeeper blog, a reader commented that trimming the wings is now one of the absolute no-gos. And beekeeping by nature is different. Why does the garden beekeeper clip the wings of queens? This is indeed an ugly measure - at least at first glance. What does it do? It is one of several measures to prevent the colony from swarming. This is especially important when bees are kept in the city, because it makes neighbours nervous if a swarm of bees hangs from a tree or even from a sun...
2018 · June 17, 2018
Two weeks after the formation of the maternaty colonies, the young queens are laying eggs, provided that the wedding flights have taken place, the matings have been successful and they have not been eaten by the bird afterwards and have also found their way back to the correct flight hole. Today the garden beekeeper checked the colonies for eggs ("pens"). If eggs were available, the queen was picked, greeted and drawn with a red dot (annual colour for 2018). A small, painless surgical...
2018 · June 02, 2018
In the afternoon of the calculated hatching date five of the 13 queens hatched in their protective cages. The rest will hatch in the next few hours. For each of the young queens - or rather princesses - a separate colony will now be created. These colonies consist of two honeycombs and bees from the nursing colony. In about one week the princesses will embark on their wedding flight, where they will mate with several drones. If they find their way back to the right flight hole and are not...
2018 · May 26, 2018
While the cells were not yet covered, the queen larvae were fed intensively with royal jelly by the nurse bees. On the 4th day after the larvae have developed 13 of the 28 larvae into queen cells. All cells are now capped. Inside the cell the noble maggot "sticks" on top in its feeding juice. Around the cell there are clusters of bees that protect the cells and keep the cells' temperature constant. These are now protected with protective cages to prevent them from being obstructed. In each cage...
2018 · May 24, 2018
Just about 48 hours after hanging up the breeding frame, the garden beekeeper checks whether the larvae are accepted and nursed. The breeding frame is full of construction and maintenance bees. The queen cups have already been waxed. The colony is calm and harmonious. There is no smoke necessary to work with these bees.
2018 · May 22, 2018
The aim of the garden beekeeper for the year 2018 is to learn queen reproduction by breeding frames. Now the first attempt to breed queens on the basis of breeding material from the mother station of the LVWI (Landesverband Württembergischer Imker) has taken place. The larvae come from performance-tested queens and are the result of the selection of positive traits (including breeding behaviour, gentleness, Varroa tolerance, honey yields, comb continuity, swarm drive).
2017 · June 28, 2017
An offshoot, which has been broken 3h before all reproduction cells, will have a mated queen added by a breeder. After an hour's drive the bees sniff excitedly at their stepmother. After 2 days the closure for the feed dough stopper is opened so that the bees can eat their way to their new hive mother. The garden beekeeper is curious whether she will be accepted, which does not always work out.
2017 · June 25, 2017
It takes about 4 weeks from the creation of a offshoot. Until then, the mini colonies are very vulnerable, because many flying bees return to the mother colony. In addition, they often become victims of predation by other bees, which rob them of their food. Setting up offshoots at the location of the mother colonies is therefore problematic. It is much better to place the offshoots directly outside the flight circle of the bees. The garden beekeeper has now finally organised a second location...