Category Archives: Bees

A close up of a charged queen cell.

Summer 2025 Trials

Bees, SARE Grant

On April 23 I started another round of swarm queen trials. This summer I and my volunteers will focus on the nuc production process I hinted at in my last post. In a nutshell, I put the queen frame in a nuc, and push that nuc to the swarm point, leaving the queen free to roam the colony.

This nuc colony had to draw out the swarm queen frame from scratch – they just had foundation to start with. They went gangbusters, drawing drone comb over the queen cups:

The swarm queen frame is drawn, but there is drone comb at the bottom where the queen cups are placed.

I removed the drone comb and put it back. The upper brood area is full of eggs. I would expect to see some swarm cup action in the next two weeks.

This nuc started on 5/1 with a frame left over from last year’s trials. They added some drone comb, but also started four swarm cells (indicated by the arrows). There are no other swarm cells started in this nuc.

the arrows indicate four cups that are charged with decent-sized larvae.

Close up of charged queen cups on the swarm queen frame.

I was pressed for time yesterday, but will move them into a cell finisher and replace the frame to see if I can get another round out of this swarm cycle. I left the drawn comb since it was chilly and I would need to take time to carefully remove it around the one queen cell at the end.

So far the behavior matches my expectations. You can see the queen cups are being worked (they were wax-dipped prior to placement). The workers narrowed the openings on all of the cups — which seems to be the first thing the workers do with the JZBZ cups. (Side note, perhaps another hint at a mechanical trigger to laying fertilized versus unfertilized eggs.) They have not started swarm cells elsewhere, which suggests they’re amenable to doing so where I suggested (on my frame so I can now steal them).

I am going to dig through my supplies to see if I can find darker JZBZ cups, though. It’s almost impossible for me to see eggs and small larvae against the red. (It’s possible that I missed other charged cells because of this, so I’ll know tomorrow if that’s the case or not.)

Northeast SARE LogoThis material is based upon work supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, through the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program under subaward number FNE24-102. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Northeast SARE Logo

Northeast SARE Grant Recipient

Beekeeping, Bees, SARE Grant

Northeast SARE Logo

The Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education (SARE) program awarded HoneyApple Hill a grant for the 2024-2025 beekeeping seasons. Improving Apis mellifera Breeding Quality by Swarm Impulse Manipulation will explore the possibility of manipulating honey bee colonies such that the queen lays eggs directly into queen cups.

What inspired this line of research is the one-two impact of eggs that are laid directly into queen cups by the queen are larger than eggs laid in worker cells. These eggs produce bigger queens with more ovaioles (first impact). The maternal effect shows that larger queens make larger workers (second impact). Larger workers have the downstream effects of healthier hives.

In a nutshell, I will manipulate the following for this project:

  1. Create swarming conditions in single, 8-frame deeps and nuc boxes.
  2. Confine the queen to a single frame that has empty queen cups on it of three types: traditional JZBZ cups (inner diameter 8.5mm), 3D printed cups (ID 9mm), hand-dipped wax cups (ID 9.5mm). The frames will be entirely queen cups (ideal for commercial breeding), or queen cups mixed with worker cell comb that mimicking natural swarm situations.
  3. Identify conditions that encourage (or discourage) the queen laying in queen cups. Workers may ultimately dictate when/if a queen cell is charged. I expect to learn more about this during the course of this project.
  4. If the queen lays directly into queen cups, test how long the colony can maintain this condition to enumerate how many queen cells can be generated from one colony.
  5. Determine the monthly viability of a successful method from May through August.

Beekeepers swear by swarm queens when talking about “queen quality”. My ultimate goal is to find a commercially-viable process for swarm queen production.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, through the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program under subaward number FNE24-102. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

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Vegetation Management

Beekeeping, Bees, Forage

In the fall of 2021 I experienced my worst robbing year ever. The goldenrod and knotweed came and went, the bees packed in the honey, the asters made their feeble debut. Normally cold temperatures quickly follow, a cue that keeps the bees tucked in tight and minding their own business.

Recently (and by that I mean the last two or three years), those feeble asters signal something else; a fall dearth with no brood and warm weather. With no brood to tend, and temperatures good for flying, all that’s left is foraging — right in each others’ hives. Feeding sugar syrup didn’t really help. Who’d want sugar water when there’s all this delicious honey to be had for the taking?

To address this, I’m testing some goldenrod management. If mowed, goldenrod will regrow and blossom, but out of step with the natural crop. Thus begins my experiment:

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The first cut, made June 6. About 12 feet wide and at about 6 inches off the ground. I’d like to say it follows the apiary fence, but I simply didn’t walk straight.
The first cut a week later. I started a second cut to the right.
The second cut, June 14, has the same dimensions and follows the general path of the first.

I’ll do one more cut next week. If this works, this first cut will bloom after the natural goldenrod dies off, the second a week later, and then the third. I’ll track which cut gives the most growth and flowers, if I cut too early or too late, and search for a sweet spot to prolong my goldenrod bloom.

The other step I’ll try is to seed some Canada goldenrod, a variety that blooms later than the tall goldenrod common to my field.

The real metric will be: does this affect the robbing frenzy?

Not all goldenrod produces nectar for bees. If you’re interested in identifying goldenrod species in your forage area try this field guide (pdf)