President s Message We have had a great June so far right? The weather has not been too hot

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1 A non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of beekeeping June 2014 Newsletter T he Wasatch Beekeepers association is dedicated to the continued education and promotion of beekeeping. Beekeepers offer a service to the community and nation in a time where bees are dying at a rapid place. We believe that through education, we can help other beekeepers stay current in the areas of medications, equipment, bee diseases, problems, etc. Beekeepers can find support and knowledge from each other and each other experiences. President s Message We have had a great June so far right? The weather has not been too hot and we have had rain to keep the plants green. I am hearing that the flow is on and that people are reporting lots of honey. Make sure you are keeping enough room for your bees to make more honey. If you see your brood nest backfilling with honey and not allowing the queen to lay eggs you need to add more boxes to your hive. Swarms this late still do happen so keep on top of that. The date of our summer BBQ is August 21 at 6:00. It will be in South Jordan and at the riverfront park system. We will send out more info as it gets closer. We are lining up items to be auctioned off. If you have anything that you would like to donate let us know and know that all the money goes right back into the club. Make sure your bees have a good water source as July will heat up and you do not want your bees spending all their time finding water. If you have a good source, great, if not make a couple and help the bees out. Start planning now how you are going to be pulling out your honey. It will be here soon so have a plan. We will talk about it at our upcoming meetings but be prepared. You will also want to start planning how you are going to treat your bees for mites. There are a lot of different ways but you need to do something. Have a great summer and enjoy this great weather. Bevan Weed 1

2 On June 3, 2014 the State of Utah reported an outbreak of American Foulbrood (AFB) in Taylorsville, Utah. If you do have any hives within the vicinity of Taylorsville, please inspect them for AFB if you have not done so already. If you suspect that you do have AFB, please contact Joey Caputo from the state at (801) He advised us that, "Regulatory action will not be taken against beekeepers that are reporting disease, even if they are not registered. I am much more concerned about containing the outbreak than I am about registration status." o BYU is also conducting an experimental phage treatment of AFB and it has been found to even bring hives back from the brink in some cases. We would highly suggest contacting them at byubees@gmail.com if you do have a case of AFB. They will be attending future WBA meetings to collect samples, if you have any. A brochure of their program is attached to the . If you haven't already, we do encourage you to register with the state. For more information, you can visit their website at If you haven't paid your $10 WBA membership fee yet, we encourage you to do that as soon as you are able. It is just a small fee for the great information and fantastic resources that our association provides. 2

3 The best queen cells are produced when the conditions are as near as possible to the natural conditions found when a strong colony of bees produces queen cells swarm as a result of the swarming impulse. In general, as long as eggs are present in the colony then the bees will be able to rear a replacement queen to make a simple colony division. However, this emergency queen replacement procedure is not quite the same as natural queen replacement due to supersedure or swarming or queens raised using other queen rearing methods. There is a difference between larvae that are specially raised from an egg with the intention of it becoming a queen and the queens raised as an emergency response to queenlessness. Nonetheless, as long as the larvae used to raise an emergency queen are sufficiently young then a queen raised in this fashion will be as good as any other for heading a colony. In practical terms a beekeeper using this technique to divide a colony should ensure that queen cells that are already sealed after 3 days are removed because they will have started using larvae that are too old to develop sufficient ovarioles to be a fully fecund queen. To raise queens, colonies have to be strong. The number and quality of the queen cells reared relates directly to the size of the cell building population in the cell building phase. Some beekeepers unite two colonies to get sufficient strength. Abundant food is critical in queen rearing and colonies being used for queen rearing need constant feeding with sugar syrup. They also need lots of pollen available to provide the quantities of protein needed for the workers to produce royal jelly. Commercial queen rearing will start with very young larvae, ideally selected at the day of hatching from the egg, being placed by some means into a preformed queen cell. They must be very tiny or they will not make good queens. They need to be only one day old after the egg has hatched. The rule is that you almost should not be able to see them. If you see them clearly they are too old. The bees can be persuaded to rear queens 3

4 by grafting eggs from worker cells into specially prepared queen cells made out of bees wax and put onto a frame so the cells hang downwards. These cells are prepared with a little royal jelly in the bottom for the new larva to lie on. Then the larvae are transferred from worker cells using a simple tool such as a shaved matchstick or a small paintbrush. The slightly dampened grafting tool is used to gently lift the newly hatched lava out of the cell and place it into the newly prepared queen cup. As long as the workers accept the new cells as queen cells, from this point on it will be treated as if it were a young queen, lavishly fed on royal jelly only and reared into a new queen. Other approaches use a special kit such as the 'Jenter' or 'Cup Kit' system. These are systems using specially designed plastic plugs. To start the process they are put into the colony that has been chosen to be the breeding colony as part of a worker comb. Once the queen has laid eggs in the cells, the beekeeper can take out the comb that has been laid, remove the small plastic plugs containing the egg or young larva, and place it into a queen rearing frame with another plastic component that encourages the bees to think this is a queen cell. Once the bees have decided it is a queen cell they will feed it lavishly and extend the cell sides as the larva grows. 4

5 A third method is by reorientating the worker cells so they appear to the bees to be queen cells. This is done again by moving worker cells so they hang downwards. Worker cells containing newly hatched larva are carefully cut into strips or punched out of the wax. They are then moved into a different direction so that the cells are pointing downward. They may be tied or waxed onto a frame or onto a top bar. Because queen cells always hang downward, a worker bee coming across a newly hatched larva in a cell that is pointing downwards will decide that the cell must be a queen cell and will extend the cell to make a new queen cell and feed the queens lavishly with royal jelly so they become queens. Many queen bees can be raised using these methods. But a very strong colony of bees that is well fed is needed because only good feeding and many bees will produce good quality queens. The bees need to build, rear, provision and protect the new queen cells. This may be done all in one colony if the queen rearing is small scale or the queen cells may be moved in stages between several colonies where the bees are in the correct state to nurture the cells at that point in the cycle. Once queen cells are built and sealed they need protecting or moving before the young queens hatch. If the queens are allowed to hatch without being protected from each other the first queen to hatch will kill all the others. Once the queens are safely sealed and close to hatching they must be transferred to small nucleus hives. These are hives with a small number of bees that will form the basis of a new colony. When rearing queens the beekeeper must take into account that each of these new queens will need a small hive to head. These have to be prepared by moving worker bees taken from existing stocks so it is not sensible to rear a lot of queen bees if there are not enough stocks of bees to make new nucleus hives. It should also be borne in mine that where the new young nucleus colony is placed should be the permanent home of the new colony if it is not to cause problems later on. Once the queens are hatched they will fly out and mate before settling down to become the mother of the colony. African bees have a shorter queen development period which needs to be taken into account. Tropical beekeeping books sometimes quote development periods that are in fact those of temperate bees which are longer. This can result in loss of all the queens if used. In addition, African bees are quicker to develop laying workers that can upset the idea of rearing queens. There are more things that can go wrong when rearing queens using either African bee (or African bee in the Americas) or Apis cerana. Consequently, it is sensible not to use these more complex techniques unless a significant number of bee colonies are already owned. The writer suggests risky techniques should not be considered if the beekeeper has less than 10 colonies. Simple colony division is a less risky option in this case. 5

6 Ultimately, these systems that allow you to produce queens end up paying for themselves. Queens that you have raised yourself tend to be better than queens that you can purchase. Superior Genetics = Superior Queens Conditions are important to grafting queens. Don't use brood from a grumpy hive because that's what you'll end up getting. Practice grafting and get quick at it. It can take up to 10 days after hatching for a queen to lay eggs. If there aren't any eggs after 15 days or only drones are being laid, she either didn't breed right or she's still figuring it all out. Write on your hive! It can serve as a history of the hive as well as a reminder of what you checked on last and what you may need to keep an eye out for this time. Bring a sharpie and include the date of your inspection as well as a description of the status of the hive. You can concoct whatever language, abbreviations, or acronyms that will serve you best. For example, 6/15/14 - DLQ (drone laying queen). 6/22/14 - KQ (killed queen). Grafting Tools & Supplies Dave Cushman's website provides a pretty good list of the different types of grafting tools that you can either purchase or make yourself. Some local businesses that supply grafting tools: Name Website Phone Number Ecobox (801) The Honey Stop (801) Jones Bee Company, Utah (801) Harvest Lane Honey (435) (Appointment Only) 3 Bee Honey (801)

7 Color For Year Ending In White (or gray) 1 or 6 Yellow 2 or 7 Red 3 or 8 Green 4 or 9 Blue 5 or 0 For more info on marking the queens, check out these websites: