Приветствуйте российскую Королеву

or
Welcome the Russian Queen!

Keeping the string alive of never meeting a beekeeper I didn't like, on Wednesday I visited Warm Colors Apiary (see website list) and met a wonderful beekeeper, Dan Conlon. Dan has been keeping bees for 40 years and, with his wife, Bonita, has a very nice apiary and store at their home in South Deerfield, MA. I emailed Dan about purchasing a queen to replace the one I just lost in Hive 1. Even tho' he did not have any raised queens for sale, he offered to sell me a queen out of one of his nucs since I was in a jam. Getting a new queen was worth the ride but the best part was the education I received while speaking with Dan. Our conversation covered everything from Russian vs Italian bees, treating the 2 strains of nosema, the efficacy of sugaring bees to prevent mites (do it only on days over 90º), the importance of knowing the environment in which you are raising your bees, how to place the new queen in the hive and, well, you get my drift. I was very grateful for the queen but the conversation will be what I remember–which is one of the things I like best about beekeeping. The experienced beeks never hesitate to help the newbies. It's a great community...

The new queen is a locally raised Russian. The Russian strain tends to winter better, build up faster in the spring, be more tolerant of verroa but will be less docile than the Italians and will tend to swarm. Nowhere in nature does a community (like a beehive) that is so related have such a dramatic change in genetics as when a new queen is introduced to an existing hive. Often, the bees that are getting the queen will reject her and attack her in her cage, especially if there are attendant bees in the cage with her. To help prevent this, Dan caught the queen, marked her and put her in a single hole cage with a sugar plug (pic 1). To keep her happy, he put her in a paper bag and added a few bees to attend to her until I put her in her new home.

Prior to introducing her, I did a final check for eggs. Though I didn't see any, I did see they had started several supersedure cells and had actually capped one already. This really makes me wonder if the queen had become trapped in the queen excluder prior to Sunday and maybe I didn't accidentally kill her but simply found her. Who knows...In order to help her be accepted by my bees, I placed her cage in the top deep between 2 frames of capped brood. The nurse bees are young and tend to be more willing to accept the queen more than the older field bees. It was amazing to watch! As soon as I put her in position bees immediately came to her–not aggressively–but in a care taking fashion (pic 2-3).
After placing a pollen patty, I closed up the hive. I'll open it on Saturday to see if the bees have released her. If they have, I'll leave everything alone for a couple of weeks and then check for eggs and capped brood. If that's what I see, the hive is happy. If not, I'll have to combine the hives...