Four Queens in One Hive (If 2020 was a bee colony...)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.ย. 2024
- A swarmy run-away queen, a drone laying queen, a Buckfast queen, and a wildcard mystery queen walk into a beehive... THIS IS NOT A JOKE. In this video, I make a ton of beekeeping decisions, do a bunch of bee math, and share with you all my beekeeping frustrations with this colony. There has been no shortage of queen issues in my hives this year, but the UNA hive is definitely the queen of the queen problems.
Last time something like this happened:
Two Queens One Hive... • Two Queens in One Hive...
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this is an high skilled application of forensics for bees with murdering, cheating and all the stuff
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That is Game of Thrones level of bee intrigue lol. And I thought I had queen troubles when I started :)
Game of Drones.. (sorry I couldn't resist! 🤣)
Yes
For the Iron Comb!
She who controls the iron comb controls all of nesteros
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All this needs is a bunch of pictures of bees, connected with red strings and some of them crossed out, lit with a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling...
Ahahaha you named it Days of Our Hives. I literally laughed loud enough to wake up one of the cats-and that's the first time I've laughed in a few days. I am utterly delighted you ran with that thread, and absolutely owe you one for the little bit of joy that's brought me. 😂
Jim, usually the most simple answer is the right one....you simply missed a queen cell. Is very easy to do
The new Queen didn't miss her mark by 6 feet ... she's just social distancing
Ha ha ha ha ha ha stop 😂😂😂
🤣🤣🤣
I was expect 4 queens to be working harmoniously together in the hive and you going what the heck
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My bee buddy... you were one of the FIRST videos I ever watched about bee keeping years ago when I found myself in the TH-cam rabbit hole of honey. I still remember that video ( I think you know which one) like yesterday because I laughed so hard, rewound it, laughed again and then showed my husband and we laughed. And NOW, just look at you. You went from Barney Fife of bees to Perry Mason and all I can do is smile. I'm proud of you and the progress you've made over the years. Thank you for sharing.
This was definitely a lot of detective work. Thanks for the kind words.
I had some drama today in my yard. Man I messed up
I had a crazy adventure in the beehive.
I checked a split. First frame saw the queen. She was huge. I went to grab her to mark her and she flew in the on top of a hive and then on the ground. I saw tried to grab her and she went to the front of the hive. I went to grab her and she flew in to a different hive. I was panicking and saying NOOOO. I started to take the frames out and she attacked the queen of that hive that I didn't know had a queen. I was telling her to stop and I nudged them with the hive tool. They separated and I almost had her then she disappeared. I saw the other and she disappeared but I found her and marked her. I took all the frames out and did not find the original queen. She was soooo big too I hope she made it back. I was panicking and kind of yelling lol
That would make a good video.
She didn’t listen when you told her to stop? Typical queen bee attitude 😐
@@leahsilverstein I know right.
That was a wild right from beginning to end.
you had it to easy last year, now the bees really want to show you how little control you have about anything :D
I have had queens mysteriously show up. Usually in a hive that was hurting in some way. One that I had just put a new queen into. Turned out well.
I'm not gonna lie, I started to tear up on the murder music when the queen was dethroned. NICE handling of the ugly deed, gave it respect. Life isn't always pretty and fare
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Excellent video! I love hearing your thought process. 40+ years of beekeeping, and they still surprise and mystify me.
Watching this again right after our first two 2021 videos was so perfectly cathartic! I laughed and cried and had emotions I don't even try to define! Thank you sir!!!
“The males will eat all of the resources”... yes, yes this sounds familiar as the mom of a teenage boy.
😂😂😂 SO true!!
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I just came home from my 7 hour shift I popped on this video and you started with "ohhh you want a story drama?" I paused it....ran to the fridge grabbed a beer and sat on the sofa..pressed play.....you did not disappoint sir.....lol...love thissssss
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As someone who finds most modern TV to be predictable and cringey, these have been extremely fun to watch. Been binging since found the channel, three days ago. Better than modern "reality" TV!
Challenges to say the least. Your story was interesting to watch, but I have to say we are having some similar stuff happen as well. Our queens this year have been the most strange I have ever seen. We had a queen who was a virgin fly off of the frame during an inspection and we didn't see where she went. As we got 4 hives down doing an inspection we noticed the bees surrounding an intruder so we looked closer and it was the virgin that flew off of the frame. We rescued her and put her back, weird right. Also we are doing inspections and find a hive with multiple queen cells, we are deciding which way we want to handle them and just then one queen starts to emerge. We watch her emerge only to see her finally come out and be attacked by a queen that we didn't know was in the hive! They both started fighting and flew away, the hive remained queen less until another queen was born. We have lost a few queens this year for unknown reasons far more than any year before. Strange year for queens and humans. Keep the videos coming enjoy watching your stuff.
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Drone laying queens: this spring was strange. My first round of splits STUNK. 2 out of 3 were drone layers. I stewed about it and decided to wait n see. Good decision. The drone layers got their issues corrected. I think that's very odd but the minute they straightened their eggs out their colonies grew and grew. I had 6 or maybe 8 like that. Two never corrected and their own bees did them in finally. That's what newspaper is for.
In my opinion, it happens more often when you don't keep enough distance between your hives. Happened to us too. I've been trying to put more room between my hives this year, less problems, less competition etc...
Love your vids, Greets from France
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I lol'ed at the video title, so true. As Forrest said..."It haappuns." Shame to lose that Buckfast.
I had lots of Queen drama this year with my hives. Bought a Much week later no queen. Had a hives survive throughout the winter that was queenless. Bought new queen for that hive to have her disappear in a week. Bought 2 queens and introduced them 2 weeks ago. Opened up last week and eggs and brood. So all is good. Going to let nature takes it course at this point. Fingers crossed the hives will do well their new queens.
Trouble shoot....reassess....trouble shoot...reassess. Doing a great job, and I’m finding that is the craft of beekeeping.
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Wow! What a complicated and fascinating situation! You are so on this though! I am worn to a frazzle figuring it all out!! You did good! You thought it all through comprehensively. Bees are so unpredictable. Well done!
Thank you so much for making this calendar. It was incredibly helpful!
A drone-laying colony can build Queencells from drone eggs, usually those drone-queen-cells are longer than normal queen cells. I also experienced that a colony that lays drone eggs usually replaces very quickly the new queen (if it does accept her) and raises from the newly laid fertilized eggs one or more new Queens. Queens sometimes do fly into the wrong hive (just like other bees do that, too).
Craziness. So what now with the queenless hive that lost their hard work due to their directionally challenged royalty invading Una?
A good video to show new beekeepers some of the dilemas that can occur and how important to know your life cycles. Quite possible that a queen had emerged from a cell before you took those other cells down and she hadn't been out to mate yet so no eggs. Then she could have killed your new queen. Re laying workers....It's not usually just one but hundreds. Workers ovaries alter to be able to produce eggs only after there is no brood pheromone in the hive for about 3 weeks. Not queenless for 3 weeks but broodless for 3 weeks. It follows then that if a hive has been queenless for a few weeks and a new queen is introduced it will go better for her if you put some wet larvae and brood in the hive a day or two before introducing the new queen (after checking for queen cells).
Thanks for the interesting update. Who would of thought that a random queen would fly in and take over. Sad about your new buckfast queen tho.
I know absolutely nothing about bees but I'm so interested in you videos and explanations its unreal I don't even know how I got here
The way you edited the slaying of the queen was perfect dude.
Hi Jim, Great video. In my opinion you made the best choices at each decision point. My one comment would be that the new queen could be from the frame of eggs you put in on July 5. Bees can be really sneaky about queen cell placement. I just had a surprise while transferring bees into a new observation hive. The bees to go in the hive were in a nuc box with 4.5 frames of drawn comb and a small but growing population of bees. The Queen had a problem and wasn't able to maintain a large hive (her original hive superseded her and I removed her to the nuc box before they killed her). My plan was to watch the bees in the observation hive make a new queen. I regularly checked the nuc, small population, few frames... When transferring the bees into the observation hive there was a new queen as well as the old one. My point, it's easy to miss a queen cell.
This is better than a soap opera. It's Macbeth, everybody gets killed. Of my 6 hives (with queen excluders and upper entrances), TWO were running two queens per hive. Easiest splits I ever made. Restack. Done
I think you are better off with that queen, my hives never like when I introduce a queen. They always let her lay a little, then kill her and make a new queen. I had a split that made queens, but she didn't return from mating. I added a queen i bought, she lasted 10 days, then they killed her and they made queen cells. Those queens may or may have not emerged, if they did, they were killed or didn't come back. So finally today I had to combine them with a smaller hive. I too have had Queen Drama since early May. But like you, today I am happy, no more quandaries and all hives Queen right and laying. And this year all queens were born this season....now lets see who is left to greet me next April!!
I had a hive do the same thing after I introduced a new mated queen. They let her lay 3 frames of eggs, killer her and made Q cells. I put a double screen dividing board between the two hive boxes to increase my odds of getting a mated queen back. One didn't requeen the other one did. What a waste of $50. Tomorrow I do a paper combine to put them back together.
I think you did everything right..just got a double oddball situation. But that said, since the hive has had two queens miss their orientation flights back, I would suggest perhaps angling every other row in a different direction or putting a stripe pattern on the hives. ie horizontal black and white, next row do vertical black and white and third row do checkerboard? Keep it as simple as possible, so its not a huge project, but at the same time do something to make at least the entrance sections of the hives distinctive enough to hopefully prevent the queens returning to the wrong hives.
I wouldn't run out and do it right now, that would just confuse every bee in the yard, but maybe each hive that does a replacement queen, paint 1 or 2 stripes in a distinct pattern before she leaves to go on a mating flight.
I watched a documentary and they had a massive multistory hive, many hives wide and probably three high. They had a random pattern painted across them all, like painting the face of a bee condo. They said it was for orientation.
As I go back through and watch your videos again, apologies for commenting again on this one. Last summer, I had a hive that had been slimed by hive beetles. I was in the process of trying to save what remained, including the queen. During that process, I did roughly what you did with Una. I bobbled her somehow, and lost track of her. A couple days later, I find her, and what I assume was the remaining workers from the slimed hive, had moved into a box on the other end of my yard, at the spot where I BELIEVE she had originally been located when she was mated. Basically I had an empty box just sitting on the rack where she had been mated the previous year, and NOW, she needed a home, and she went to where she remembered her home was. Now, I don't know what the timeline on the hooyah with this hive, and any of your queens, Una or otherwise, but there's another possibility of where that queen came from. Anyways, I look forward to seeing your season 6, as I go through my own season 5.
I know how you feel Vino. I had 3 queens in one hive. 2 on the same frame. They never swarmed either. I think a queen went out on her mating flight and went to the wrong hive. Then a split I made with that hive the queen went back to the wrong hive also. So 3 queens.
I loved this story..Honey bees are always surprising me with their ability to overcome adversity..They truly are clever girls ...Thank you for the entertaining story .
My first hive this year, was making queen cells out of drone brood from a laying worker. That was fun to figure out. Newbie who caught a swarm that queen didnt make it home or was a virgin swarm and didnt make it back.
I had no idea what was coming next...I was on the edge of my seat the whole episode!!! 😲
Just love watching your videos!
Thanks for making them🤗
Thanks to you and your great videos I started my first hive today. Got a nuc from my local club and dropped them in my back yard.
Yeah I remember old queen Stumpy with the short center leg.
She led a fine troop of bees into battle one summer then ...
Tune in next spring for the exciting continuation of queen Stumpy's reign. 😆
My colleague had a similar situation in one of his hives this year...got through winter then they decided to supercede, he finds new unmarked queen and marks it, it lays for a few weeks and disappears, a new unmarked queen appears which he marks and same thing, this happened time after time, was driving him mad but giving myself and another beek a laugh. Each time he checked there were never any queen cells just new queens. One week he couldn't find the queen again but eggs and larvae, spent an hour checking through it and still couldn't find it, hour later he went back again for another hour and found unmarked queen. All ok for another few weeks then it goes missing and he finds yet another unmarked queen...this time he marks it white instead of blue. The following week we were going through the hives and he finds a BLUE marked queen in the hive where he had marked the queen he found the week before white, he is now pulling his hair out, carries on his inspection, two more frames in he finds the white marked queen - so now he ends up with two marked queens in the hive. This has been the case now for the last four weeks so hopefully it has settled down and they both come through winter.
Great parting wisdom there at the end.. "Just let the hive bee." 😉
Suggestion: Mark all your queens for every hive. Then you’ll know more and guess less... Just a suggestion😎👍
It sounds like you did everything you could for the hive. This year had been super crazy for swarms and queens around here. Twice this year I found two queens in one hive. I hope the rest of the season goes smoothly for Una hive.
Welcome to queen rearing. That's what makes the mini nucs tempting because of the ability to space them anywhere in any direction had what you're talking about happen many times.
Jim it’s time to come up with a depth chart so we can keep up! 😆
Man, I really wanted to start using a calendar this year as well. Then the entire Corona thing got in the way. I prepared it for next year, though. Definitely makes life a lot easier.
I also had some queen bee trouble this year. One of my splits got themselves a queen just nicely. Apparently it was mated by a buckfast or italian mixture. Big, yellow and fat ass. All seemed well until I took a look in the hive a month ago and saw them having no brood and no queen anymore. So I was a bit panicky and then saw her. That european dark bee mixture of a queen. Only barely bigger than the rest of the bees. Apparently they didn't like their first queen and went for a new one. And I was fortunate enough to have it mated with a dark bee bloodline which I am super stoked about. That's a very rare thing around here which makes it super exciting. Now just need to get them up to the task and be winter ready since the hive was way too small and the summer was super cold and rainy so far. Fingers crossed.
This is hilarious hahah good job on producing these videos ! Have been binge watching them :D
Somehow your bee yard sound like the who's on first routine! Crazy!,,
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Well if that new queen is indeed from that split you made from the Oddball hive then you actually got what you had originally wanted - another Balboa queen to replace Una 😂 Didn't the last takeover happen with a Balboa daughter as well? Some strong genetics in that line 👍
Look on the bright side......you are keeping us entertained! Keep it up :P!!!
Sounds like our season here in Virginia. The crazy season started 3/21 when swarm season came a month early. All my colonies were in some state of queenlessness until June. Good luck.
PHEW ! Beekeeping 101 (NOT) Craziness. Seems like your deduction is dead on though. That’s Beekeeping. Good luck. Enjoying your videos and information very much. Fellow Mass Beekeeper.
But! you didn't rule out the possibility that you missed that queen in the beehive. I have had queens that were as big as a normal queen!
If she flew in before you introduced the buckfast queen, then the buckfast queen woudn't have been accepted.
The other senario, if she flew in after you introduved the buckfast queen, in this case, this queen should be the queen attacked.
Making big splits is always painful.
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I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't have but I giggled. This is the Balboa bee yard from day one. Since the first day you inherited them they've always done things their own way and I personally have come to just shake my head, laugh and go along with it. I know I'm not tending your yard but things have usually always worked out in the end one way or another. I know losing that new BF Queen hurts, but for all we know, she may be in another hive. lol I looked at the "Queen" that you saw in Una (the one you dispatched), but she didn't look mated to me. She looked more like a virgin. Her abdomen didn't look fat and extended like it would if she had been mated. It would explain why she was producing Drones. Weather could have played a big part in that also. Camera angle/distance could have misled my eyes, so I could very well be wrong. Great work on the bee math, but since Frankie, nothing should surprise you anymore. lol The new Queen now in Una doesn't look like she's mated either, or she's just newly mated. Might take a bit to see if her abdomen extends and fattens. Stay safe and my best to all of you!!! 💖😊
This is better than any soap opera ever. 🕺
What a shame the nice buckfast is gone!
I've also had a lot of unmated queens fly into the wrong hives. Especially if the hives are behind each other. I've rearranged the bee yard into a row.
Phenomenal video. I’ve had similar issues this year with one of my hives and I absolutely love how you’ve worked your way through this.
WOW!! ...great video- and superb sleuthing... so- 2020 as a Bee Colony- yeah... ;-)
I started marking all of my Queens with different colors because, I had a single queen that was laying in two separate boxes side by side, except, given the circumstances,, I never could verify it for 100% Certain, since all bees were marked the same, and the same breed queens that I raised.. But, twice, I could not find queens in both boxes, even though they were both marked, but, they were sooooo full of bees, and I was running one deep and 3 and 4 supers, and some brood was in the lower supers on both, I figured it was just bad luck, I found the queen in box 3 once, and not in 4, and the next time, in 4 and not 3.. I never did find a queen in both boxes at the same inspection time, but, each time, I found fresh capped brood, fresh larva and fresh eggs.. At the end of the season, when the queen started slowing down, I ended up with a laying worker in Hive 4... I let them go for a while, until it was Super Obvious there were way too many drones, and I set a queen in a cage on top of the frames, and I could tell the bees were glad to see her, so, I pulled the plug and figured the other bees would take care of the laying worker, since they had a queen, and poof, 7 days later, I opened the box and almost all of the capped drone brood was gone, and the new queen had been laying and had new larva, eggs. etc...
It was the first time I dealt with a laying worker like that, but, makes sense to me, they won't let the laying worker kill a "Genuine Queen", and there were no queen cells to threaten the new queen either..
I have also had two queens in a box more than once.. Usually on a hive that was busting at the seams, and, I believe if you keep stacking supers, you can keep them from swarming to some extent.. I believe it was a Mother/Daughter Queen, hatched from an Emergency Queen cell, because, the second queen (unmarked) was much smaller.. I never did worry much about emergency queen cells until after that..
If that hive would have swarmed naturally, it would have been a huge swarm, but, I had a very small swarm as it slowed down a bit, still the Locust to be picked up plus some wildflower end of season honey.. It wasn't even the size of a full package.. My marked queen (the original was still in the box, but, I never saw the other queen again.. I think that queen just took a small bunch of bees (it was toward the end of the season), and went to build a new hive elsewhere.. My thoughts were, she knew she needed to start laying winter bees, probably found an abandoned hive that had some resources in it already and just took what she needed with her.. Maybe they will make tracking devices we can afford one day and we'll be able to verify some of these things one day.. Ha..Ha..
I think the reason more people don't notice things like this, is, they are not paying close enough attention.
I used to run two Deep's when the bees started populating, and, had them fill up a deep or two with honey a time or two and quit.. I used to try to raise bees, instead of honey.. Just keep extra supers on the hive, and give them plenty to do, and they will grow bees AND get the honey.. I have opened boxes and the supers have been so packed with bees, that I had to pull them to see if there were any bees in the Deep at the bottom, and, the whole box was double stacked with bees.. What did I do?? Put 2 more supers on them.. Since I started keeping at least 2 extra supers on the hive, one completely empty and one just started working on, plus another not full yet, I have not had a swarm in 3 years...
If there are too many bees, I think they will die out before winter and be replaced, or, to be honest, once, I was almost positive one of my lighter boxes got heavy all of a sudden and one of my packed boxes got pretty light at the same time..
Bees are going to do what they are going to do to populate the Earth with bees, and, if you think like they do, you can usually figure them out... BTW.. I have also had Bees store honey in two boxes (one right next to the other, because, the one next to it had a top entrance, and, the one they were Primarily in had 4 supers on top.. They surely preferred flying directly into the supers and depositing the honey, vs, hiking all the way up to the 4th super.. They never did fill that 4th super up, but, filled the deep and 2 supers in the other box.. I thought I had a swarm move into the box and didn't want to mess with it. It was during the Peak, and, I was going to check them out when they slowed down.. I noticed near the end of the season, they were heavy bees moving bee bread from the secondary box to the Primary one. I opened the box several times. No queen/brood, etc.. And, not any worker bees, but, had about 25 or so bees guarding the entrance, and, plenty of bees in the box above and below the super with the hole in it.. I checked the box twice over the winter when it warmed up a tad bit. There was honey and stores in the box, but, no bees.. Guess they figured it was too cold to have it robbed and left it alone, unguarded for the winter.. Makes sense to me.. Also, the first part of Spring, they had cleaned the box out and it was ready for a new hive.. I did a split and populated it and went about my business once I started seeing a good many drones..
Cheers.. Keep at it... I found your channel because of the Craigslist Hoop House.. I'm going to get one before long myself..
Didn't know, but, thought about putting a hive in the green house, and making a landing board entrance that would allow a few to get into the greenhouse and most of the traffic go directly outside.. Just getting started with plants after this Plandemic crap and seeing the manufactured food crisis coming.. Take Care!!
This is the most fascinating beekeeping video I have ever seen! Amazing and weird!
With all this drama is good for a novel or soup opera 🤣
Mark your bees. Mark your hives to help the dimmer bees navigate.
If you're super frequent about inspecting you find some strange stuff going on in the brood nests
Example: I like to pick around in queen cells of the 'after it swarmed'. I keep roller cages in my truck for this very reason. Razor knife ripe cells and the queen walks right into the cage untouched. I have decent luck getting them open mated.
Mann Lake mini mating nucs. Try out a handful.
Nice cut around 6:45 😜 Incidentally, your first video of you committing regicide was how I found this channel.
Frankie Hive: “Missing our nonsense now, huh???”
Yeah, I feel bad when I have to execute a queen as well and have to remind myself it is for the health and best of the hive.
Little tip, the Queen returns exactly to the same spot where she jumps off a frame. Wait 15 to 20 minutes, don't change anything in the look of this spot, cause the Queen memorised the exact spot and the extract look of the spot while flying away. She will return.
You need to do some homework on bee math... 16 days for emerging plus 5 to 7 days till mating flight... Plus 5 to 7 days till she starts laying.
Maybe next year you can expand by using multi-colored and muti-directional mating nucs away from your apiary and do away with the walk away splits. Gotta keep growin.....
So my comment is not bee related but I am impressed I heard the background music and knew it was from Edward scissorhands! Haven’t seen that movie in decades but I just knew it. Our bees were really wonky this year. My husband and I love your videos
Funny you should say that. This music is not from Edward Scissorhands (it's a track from Epidemic Sound), but I happen to be a huge Danny Elfman fan and he did the Scissorhands music. I guess my music choices subconsciously lean toward his sound. Thanks for watching.
Welcome to 2020 beekeeping.
Musical queens happens every now and then. But sometimes bee math is not perfect either. I opened 3 queen cells in one of my hives that were 3 and 4 days "overcooked" with viable queens inside and ready to go. Why the new queen had not assassinated them, why workers had not chewed them out, why they did not chew out themselves in the least bit....why? I guess it doesn't really matter. The hive does what it does. They duked it out and victor remains. Hopefully she as returned from her mating flight and laying by now. If not the drama will continue. Its better drama than anything on TV anyhow! So keep the you tube videos coming!!!!!!!
I honestly prefer the duking it out variant to be honest. I try to keep my hives in a darwinistic manner in most aspects. Still - sometimes it is tough to make sense of everything going on in these tiny little insects.
@@PresidentScrooge I agree. Its best to respect survival of the fittest for the most part. As long as the hive stays gentle enough during human interaction that is.I care not for having my bee suit tacked down to my skin with a 1000 vemonous daggers.
Sometimes there’s no logical explanation with beekeeping. They will definitely keep you guessing! I’ve had some of the same crazy stuff going on this season!
Nature is always in control. We're just along for the ride. :)
Thanks for the gripping episode - I don't keep bees but I really enjoy watching you and learn a lot! Excuse my ignorance, but is there any chance the buckfast queen was a virgin and flew out on a mating flight and then returned to the wrong hive?
Wow what a story. I have made the decision to start a hive and am reading and watching to learn. I have been asking what are 5 newbie bits of advice you can give me ?? Thank you Michele
I've had a laying worker hive make queens cells before, probably just put drone eggs in there. I ended up using the newspaper trick and just divided up the boxes onto other properly functioning colonys.
I've had some queen frustration this year as well, although in no way similar to your experience. Great story by the way.
When you tell a story young James, it sure is a doozy!!!
And now we await the conclusion.
Thanks for posting!!!
Sure thing, pal!
Maybe the queen cells were from the frame you added on the 5th? And then maybe there was already another queen running around that hive all along?? Idk There’s definitely lots of trickery going on in your bee yard 🤣🤣
Have you considered re-arranging the layout of your bee yard? I have read that placing hives in rows causes drift between hives to be worse then if placed in a semi circle or a staggered pattern. apparently just slightly changing placement and orientation of hives gives the bees a little more to go on when orientating and returning from a flight.
One thing to consider on your theory of where your wildcard queen came from: although queens emerge in 16 days, I don't think they're ready for a mating flight until several days later. I'm doubting she could have arrived in the Una hive, mated, the day after she emerged in the resource hive.
Yeah, I doubt she was mated by the looks of her. I know the queens can fly out but not necessarily mate. Maybe she was just doing an orientation flight and went off course.
You got a little leprechaun messing with. LOL
I was a queen breeder and raised queens until I retired and yes you do get a lot of queen drift in the mating nucs I raised breeder queens and the virgins were marked so I would know that is the queen I put in the nuc.
Talk about a roller coaster ride for sure brother. Thanks for sharing.
It never ends.
MP, how are your bees doing? Do you go through a dearth or do your bees keep humming? Did you have above normal Q's not coming back to your splits this year? Hope you make a video soon. Take care.
@@russellkoopman3004 hey brother, the bees are doing pretty well right now and we did have an early dearth during the really hot spell a few weeks ago. And it was a rough summer for doing walk away splits. I have a lot of queens not make it back from their mating flight. I hope to find the time to put up a video soon, right now I have just been playing catch-up and it seems like I'm always behind LOL. Thanks for checking in my friend.
I love that you can hear the exasperation and confusion in your voice 😂
What's happening is, I hesitate to be so real but here goes, he is realizing that the bees are in charge of him. He thinks it's the other way around until this video.
The hive mind is your mind...bzzźz. His loyalty got split 4 ways. Long live the queen but which one?
Nightmare on Elm Street aka Una Hive!
What an unusual story.
My hives are giving me a rough time. I needed this. Thank you.
Hey Jim (@VinoFarm). Just catching up on your videos so a bit late sending this message. My understanding is that a new queen can practice laying eggs by deliberately laying drone (unfertilised) eggs until she’s happy with her laying ability. Nothing wrong with her ability to lay eggs just that some queens like to practice more than others.
Wow. I thought my queens are drama queens! Good job. No regrets. I supported all of ur decisions. Nice video
Great story Jim! What a wild year thus far.
Bees are amazing.
As the Queen Bee turns.
It very rarely happens, but sometimes, honeybees will tolerate multiple queens, we still don't know the full reasoning behind this however.
you should get a horizontal langstroth hive.
I think he'd be able to handle the extra deep one with those Russians. According to the book 'beekeeping with a smile' those might have enough of the European dark bee which seems to have an angry streak! But I have no experience with those.
Yea I'm not shore though. I'm new to beekeeping and just started reading up and researching beekeeping. For me it just seems those horizontal beehives are much easier to handle and less stressful coz if you want to inspect the brood you dont need to move a whole section of the hive
You have got to name this new queen, (IF all goes well) Murphy. Because Murphy's Law seems to be presiding over your bee-yard.
Good idea.
I may be wrong, but I've noticed in all of our videos, and I've watched a lot of them, that all of the entrances of your hives are all facing in the same direction. Maybe start alternating the direction of the entrances of your hives. Especially, if they are right next to each other. I think this may save you from going through this drama again.
The resource hives (double nucs) are split. One entrance faces north one faces south. That helps with mating flights. I'm hesitant to change the openings too much, but I understand it might help. This isn't a common occurrence.
I read something just recently about putting a sprig of mint (or something similar, herb not important, point it's a nice leaf 🌿) to sorta block the entrance and the bees are supposed to do a re-orienting flight for their entry and apparently it's helpful. Sound bee logical to me...anyhooo 😁
Hope you put the queen that didn't pass the hive tool test into an alcohol tincture to make a swarm lure.
Maybe should colour code your queen according to the hive so you can identified them if they move house.